And We See Nothing But Red
by blue eyed sins
Summary: After leaving Denver, Kol returns to New Orleans for the first time in a century and crosses paths with Davina Claire, weeks after she escaped the harvest thanks to Marcel, who recruits Kol to help her control her magic. An Original Vampire and the all powerful teenage witch. They're both alone in the world, but what happens when they decide they don't want to be? [kol x davina]
1. and we see nothing but red

_chapter 1_

It had been over a hundred years since Kol Mikaelson last stepped into the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, and while there were things that had changed, everywhere he looked he could still see the those that made him love the city so much. People were partying left, right and center in the French Quarter and witches still lined the streets. With a trained eye like his, it wasn't too hard to tell them apart from the rest of the tourist driving crowd.

Kol would've come back to the city a lot sooner, but he'd been caught up in his mother's supposed ideals for bringing their family back together after a thousand years, and her betrayal had sent him packing off to Denver to become friends with the Gilbert boy, all for the sake of leverage against the witch who would save their lives. He'd been willing to do that for his own self-preservation, but no one knew how truly pleased he was when he was finally able to get away from his fake persona in Denver - not before beating up Damon Salvatore - and take off to the one place that he'd wanted to be ever since he woke up and realized that he was no longer there.

New Orleans.

The Crescent City.

Neither Klaus, Elijah nor Rebekah would tell him why they'd left, no matter how much Kol pestered them about it. He'd sensed a lot of bad memories and resentment for the time after he was daggered, but he'd never possessed enough tact that would persuade him to stop digging in his sibling's wounds. Still, his constant questions got him nowhere with any of them.

When he asked after Marcel, their responses had been the same and they continued to tell him nothing.

That was part of the reason he came back.

To find out what happened.

His siblings weren't the only ones that poured their hearts into the city. Kol had his own fair share of influence over what New Orleans became and his own connections to the place, mainly with the witches of the French Quarter.

That brought him to where he was, standing in the middle of Bourbon Street and admiring the appropriately named area around him.

However, as much as Kol wanted to go grab a drink at one of the many bars and relive past memories, he instead made his first stop in the Quarter the place where he, Nik, Rebekah, Elijah and Finn's coffin had lived for centuries.

The compound that they'd built themselves when their influence in the city began to grow.

Despite the fact that it had been over a hundred years, it didn't prevent Kol from striding in like he owned the place, and at one point he had. The place had gone under an extreme makeover, and he glanced around for the perpetrators as he entered. Moving around the main courtyard were several people who all turned to look at the intrusion, carrying themselves with a similar arrogance that Kol had, though he didn't appreciate it on anyone but himself.

"Who the hell are you?" A dark skinned man with large hair and a slightly squashed head came up to him, shoving himself in Kol's face with his demand for an answer. Attitude like that had never gone well with him and his eyes flashed at the unwelcome proximity to this inferior specimen.

"I don't think you should talk to me like that. It would be very unwise." Kol told him, drawing himself up against the man and sizing him up. It was then that he noticed the specific style of ring on his hand that he would recognize anywhere. A daylight ring. "You're a vampire." He observed, wondering what species had gone to these days if someone like this was an immortal.

As if on cue, the vampire lunged forward, fangs bared and eyes red. Kol didn't even blink at the attack and snapped his neck in a flash, not even bothering with the niceties of allowing the vampire to land a hit on him. As soon as this happened, the others began to move forward, all baring their fangs at him too.

Kol hadn't expected his old family home to be overrun by a number of seemingly unintelligent day walking vampires, none of which he recognized from his time in the city, which lead him to believe that they weren't all that old.

It would make them that much easier to kill. Killing young vampires was about as exhausting as swatting a fly.

"What's going on here?" Another voice called out from one of the balconies, this one someone that Kol recognized.

He restrained from ripping out some of the vampires hearts in exchange for looking up with a cheerful smile on his face.

"Kol Mikaelson?"

"Marcel Gerard. It's been a long time hasn't it?"

* * *

"So Klaus finally let you out of the coffin he's been keeping you in?" Marcel asked as he poured Kol a drink from a bottle of very aged wine, actually from a year that Kol remembered not being daggered through. They were in one of the top rooms of the compound and from there Kol could see the vampires that had tried to attack him, still milling around the place.

"After only a century, yes." Kol said, taking a sip of the drink before nodding towards the vampires. "Are those all yours?" He'd seen how they'd stopped their attack at Marcel's word and their apparent devotion hadn't been lost on him.

"Well someone had to takeover when your siblings fled the place." Marcel said, earning a surprised glance from Kol as he got a glimpse of the story that Nik had refused to tell him.

"Fled?" He raised an eyebrow. He found that hard to believe but Marcel didn't blink at Kol's surprise.

"About eight years after you were daggered, your daddy found his way to New Orleans and left the place burning while your siblings ran and left me for dead." Marcel didn't bother sparing the gritty details. "However, as you can see, I managed to survive and I rebuilt this city for the ashes. Those out there are my guys and the vampires run the city now. Werewolves aren't a problem and neither are the witches. Everything's under my control."

Kol smirked. Marcel hadn't changed that much. He'd always been a little arrogant and absorbed with the possibilities that came with power and possessing it. Kol had always liked that part of him, even if he'd never been as close to Marcel as Klaus and Rebekah had. Though he didn't dwell on that, not when he still had question and was in the presence of someone who didn't seem hell bent on denying them from him. "How did Mikael find them here?"

"No clue." Marcel replied, almost a little too quickly. "But he left when they did and I can tell you that he hasn't been back here since, and neither have your siblings. Not since 1919."

"1919." Kol mused over the year. That particular century seemed like only a few months ago to him and it was hard to remember sometimes that decades had actually passed.

"So, how are you adapting to modern times?" Marcel asked with a slight smirk. Kol knew that he was all too familiar with Klaus' enjoyment of keeping them daggered for a long time.

"Quite well, but as you know, I've already had to do that a few times here and there." Kol told him. "Though, the advancements mankind has made in the last hundred years have been quite astonishing I will admit."

His favorites were the cell phones and computers. It had taken him a while to grasp the concept of a laptop but while Nik hadn't exactly been forthcoming with information relating to New Orleans, he had given Kol the rundown of this century's new technology and thus he was quite adept with using one now.

* * *

Kol didn't know how long he spent with Marcel, drinking and talking and filling him in with everything he knew about his family's current endeavors while Marcel told him more about New Orleans' development in the time that he'd been daggered, but at some point Kol stood up with the intention of taking his leave.

"It's been quite enjoyable to catch up with an old friend, Marcel." Kol informed him as he headed to the door. "But the sun's going down and I think I'd like to see what a party is like in the French Quarter these days. I have a lot to catch up on after all."

"Wait!" Marcel hurriedly stood up as Kol made to leave, grabbing onto the Original vampire's arm in a manner that usually would have Kol rip it off, but Marcel was lucky that he could be considered close to him.

"What is it?" He asked, surprised by the sudden outburst, though he was able to hide it well.

"You used to run with the witches didn't you?" Marcel asked, though he didn't wait for any clarification on the matter. "How much do you know about ancestral magic? You spent a lot of time with the French Quarter coven didn't you?"

Kol's eyes narrowed. "I guess I can say that I know quite a bit. I was quite close with the witches in my time." He replied carefully, digging a little. "I thought you said the witches weren't a problem."

"The coven, they're not really the problem right now. I have a way to stop them from practicing magic"- Kol raised his eyebrows at this - "but the way is more of the problem. Did you ever know anything about the harvest ritual that the witches performed? They did it every three hundred years to renew their power from their ancestors."

Kol shook his head. "I was close to the witches but there were always some secrets that they would never share with me, especially not considering that Niklaus was my brother and that had a certain taint to my reputation among them." He told Marcel. "I do know that ancestral magic does require sacrifice to renew the power though. New blood to join the old and restore the balance and flow. Chances are the coven here is bound by a like this ritual too."

Marcel nodded. "They are, but what if it wasn't completed?"

"They would lose their magic. They'd be cut off from their ancestors and would have to draw from other types of power if they wanted to continue practicing. Nature, dark magic, even expression, but they are all much more dangerous and taxing to the witch or warlock than ancestral magic is." Kol said, drawing upon centuries of knowledge to answer these questions before asking one of his own. "Why are you so interested in this?"

"Because I need help with something, and I think you might be the only one that can help me." Marcel replied.

It was something that Kol never thought he would see, Marcel asking for help, and usually he didn't indulge people's requests for his aid but the talk of magic and sacrifice had peaked his interest.

"Go on."

"You're right about the sacrifice. A few weeks ago they were about to complete their harvest ritual and sacrifice four teenaged girls to the ancestors, with the supposed promise of resurrection, but I don't believe they were to return because they tricked the girls into their deaths. I found out about this and you could say I tried to stop it to prevent them from renewing their power, but I was also disgusted knowing that they had to kill kids for this." Marcel said, looking faraway as he spoke. Kol could understand his reasoning, knowing full well how Marcel had grown up. He'd always had a think for protecting children. "There were three of them that I wasn't able to save, but one of them is still alive. Davina. I'm hiding her from the witches because they still want to kill her."

"And what do you need my help with?"

"Davina is very powerful. She has the power of the three other girls who died combined with her own, but she can't control it. If she gets angry, sad, it all comes bursting out of her and it's hard to hide her when she's surging magic all over the place."

Marcel lowered his voice, as if the next words were something that he thought might offend Kol, or that they were something that shouldn't be spoken. "Your mother was a witch, and you were a warlock before you turned into a vampire. You've spent so much time with witches that you might be able to help her control her powers." As an afterthought he added, "Not to mention that I think she's willing to learn."

Kol wouldn't deny that he knew a thing or two about what Marcel was talking about and he did want to stay in New Orleans for a while. The thought of an all-powerful albeit inexperienced teenage witch was kind of amusing too. "Well with Nik and Rebekah shaking up in some stupid little town and Elijah being god knows where, I think I might stick around and see what I can do."

He would also never admit that between his siblings disregard or desire to use him for their own gain, it was nice to be wanted by someone for his expertize, a change from the expectation for him to follow along with Nik that was the usual fare for someone with the last name 'Mikaelson'.


	2. i can feel the darkness coming

Chapter 2: I Can Feel the Darkness Coming

_I can feel the darkness coming__  
And I'm afraid of myself  
Call my name and I'll come running  
'Cause I just need some help  
- Help (Hurts)_

* * *

Sabine was leading one of her numerous tours around the French Quarter when she caught sight of Marcel Gerard leaving The Abattoir. That wasn't what caught her eye though, rather the vampire that was with him. Usually the vampire king of New Orleans was accompanied by one of his Day walkers – Thierry and Diego being his most frequent companions – but today there was a different person walking with him.

While Sabine Laurent would have no reason to recognise this particular vampire, Celeste Marie Helene Dubois, knew very well who he was.

With the amount of time that Celeste spent with the Original family, she had come to know all of them. There was Elijah, her love, who always dressed in a suit and was aloof and polite, but when he wanted something he was nowhere near as noble about taking it.

Klaus was the vindictive bastard that cost her life with his uncaring attitude towards the world around him.

Rebekah was just like him, as much as she would try to deny it and the blonde vampire had also killed her once. Influenza had been a terrible way to go. At least drowning had been quick.

There was also Finn Mikaelson and while she didn't know much about him, he was apparently just as uninteresting in life as he was lying in a coffin.

Then there was Kol Mikaelson, the youngest of the original brothers and the most interesting and it was a surprise to see him walking through the streets of New Orleans when he was supposedly daggered like he had been for the past hundred years.

If it had been any of the others in front of her, Celeste would have been angered and overcome for the revenge that she so desperately desired, but those weren't the emotions invoked by seeing the vampire his brother called a 'happy homicidal maniac'.

This vampire had been a friend to witches and if he was still a friend, there would be no greater ally to recruit to aid them in completing The Harvest and a smile touched her face when this thought came to mind.

When the tour group finished, Sabine sent all of them off with her blessing and watched as they walked away in different directions, their cameras in hand and overpriced tourist merchandise in their bags. When she was alone, the witch turned into an empty alleyway and pulled out her phone, making a call.

"Hey, it's me." She said when it was picked up on the other end almost immediately. "You won't believe who I just saw walking through the Quarter, but trust me, it's good news for us."

* * *

Davina Claire's attic bedroom was filled with painting upon painting, and for everything that she had finished working on, there were double the amount of blank canvases filling every space she had. Ever since Marcel has saved her from the Harvest just a few weeks before, painting had been the only thing that could keep her mind from the power swelling in her and the fate that awaited her if the witches were able to track her down.

Hidden away in the furthest corner of the room were the drawings that depicted the faces of the witches that she was connected too. All of those she had painted were those that had attempted to use magic in the Quarter since the ritual. It hadn't taken long for her to realize this power that she now had. The witches had started searching for her as soon as the Harvest when wayward, locator spells being performed left right and centre in New Orleans and she'd felt all of them. It made her scream, cry and the magic she had burst out of her to block their charms.

When she told Marcel, he informed her that he would take care of it and to tell him should anyone else be foolish enough to try not just a locator spell, but _any _magic at all.

It didn't take long for the use of magic to stop completely, and Marcel may have never told her what he did to those who disobeyed this new rule, but she knew and he knew that she knew.

Davina felt it when they died, because their magic ran through her and there was nothing that she missed.

It made her happy that Marcel killed them. They had all conspired to end her life and the lives of her friends; Monique, Abigail and Cassie, and for that they deserved to pay with their own.

Still, it was a hard cross to bear and the paintings helped her cope.

That night, her hand moved over the canvas with a precision very advanced for her age. The picture forming in front of her eyes was that of her home. She had no idea what became of it now. She'd screamed for her mother to help during The Harvest, but Davina knew that her father had been there too and her magic had informed her of both of their deaths. She had no brothers or sisters, so she just imagined that house gathering dust, its garden overgrown with the complete absence of care that came with human life.

She didn't draw it that way though.

She painted it as she remembered, with flowers blooming all around the garden and the grass neatly kept. When she finished, she stepped back to admire it, taking in the beauty and glad with the way she had captured it. It looked just like she remembered, but at the same time there was something distinctly off about it. It took a few minutes to understand what it was, but eventually it clicked in her mind.

That was the home of a happy family.

That was the home of two parents that loved their daughter.

That was the home of a mother and father who would never think of sacrificing their daughter for the sake of power.

That home had been a lie.

Sighing, Davina placed all of her paints down and grabbed the canvas, even though it was not yet dry, and took it across her room to the corner of witches and stashed it there, not wanting to look at it. Satisfied with being unable to see it, she made to turn away, but the voices had other ideas.

_Don't you want to go back home, Davina?_

She jumped as if someone was yelling in her ear but Davina already knew that the voices weren't from company. There had been more than just the all-powerful side effects of having so much power. She hadn't told Marcel about the direct connections that the ancestors had with her. If she lost focus for even a moment, they were able to get through and whenever they found ammunition in her mind, they were quick to whisper in her ear.

And they weren't the only ones. She heard her friends too, asking her to complete the Harvest so that they could be restored back to life.

_Your parents want you to go back home._

"Shut up." She whispered, placing her hands over her ears even though it did not good. "Leave me alone."

_Return the magic, complete the harvest and you will be reborn._

_Then you can go home, Davina._

"Leave me alone!" She screamed, screwing up her face from the magical agony that came with having them in her head. The floor beneath her shook with her rage and the candles in her room burst up in heat and fire, everything around her firing out of control. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

"Davina!" A voice yelled from below her room, Marcel. He was up there in a flash, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her against him. "Davina, it's okay. It's okay."

"Marcel…" She muttered, suddenly aware of the mess of her powers and she forced herself to calm down, as difficult as it was, putting up a mental barrier between her and the ancestors again. "I'm sorry Marcel. I didn't mean to do that…"

"I know, D. I know." Marcel said, running his hand through her hair and listening to her heartbeat until he was certain that she was calm. Davina slowly pulled away from him, still breathing heavily from the whole ordeal. She was worried for the moment that Marcel asked what had been going on, who she'd been yelling at, knowing that he would think her crazy when she admitted everything, but he never did. Instead, the dark skinned vampire turned to a figure behind him that Davina hadn't noticed in the whole ordeal, her tear stained eyes only focusing on him then.

The stranger was a vampire – he hadn't crossed into her room and was standing just behind her barrier – and he was watching her with a curious expression. Her face flushed with embarrassment, knowing that he'd witnessed the display and Davina quickly wiped her eyes, not wanting to seem weak in front of someone that she didn't know.

"Davina, this is Kol Mikaelson." Marcel said, and the name was one that she vaguely recognized. Marcel had told her little of his past, but she knew from being a witch that the vampires known as the children of Mikael had been the ones to build the city she called him. Kol Mikaelson was known among the witches and while Davina herself didn't know too much of his involvement with the French Quarter Coven, the elders had spoken of this vampire from time to time. "He's visiting in the city after a… long absence and he's going to help you control your powers.

She looked back at the vampire in confusion. There was an amusement in his expression that suggested this was something he didn't usually do, not to mention the aura that came from someone so old, and there was a distinct darkness that she picked up on. The vampire, Kol, smirked as if he knew exactly what she was thinking about and her eyes flicked back to Marcel to avoid looking at him.

"He's a vampire." She pointed out, a hint of teenage attitude saturating her voice. "How can he help me?"

"Well," Marcel began, gesturing back to him, "When Kol was a human, his family were witches and warlocks, and he's spent a lot of his lifetime with witches in different countries, and specifically those in the French Quarter. If anyone can help you, it'll be him."

The idea of a vampire helping her was something Davina found just as amusing as Kol Mikaelson apparently found her. Slowly, she moved away from Marcel and walked towards the barrier that he could not yet pass. The vampire didn't move an inch as she came up to him, watching her still with that smirk. His eyes were dark and she starred right into them. With the amount of magic she had, it was a bit like seeing into someone's soul, and in the depths of the darkness, there was the unmistakable trace of magic that never really went away with immortality. It was just dormant, but it was there.

"You can come in." She whispered, taking a step back from him and revoking the barrier against him.

Kol Mikaelson stepped forward into the attic, radiating a mix of confidence and arrogance with every movement. "Thank you, darling." He said, those dark eyes never looking away from her.

"Davina." She corrected, taking a step back towards Marcel who in turn started to move forward towards the doorway.

"I'm going to give you some time." He said, looking at Kol. "You know where to find me later."

"Marcel." Davina called as he started to leave, and the vampire she trusted turned around at the sound of her uncertainty.

"It's okay, D. You can trust him." Marcel replied. "I do." He said before vacating her vision and leaving her alone with this Kol Mikaelson, the vampire that apparently ran with witches and could teach her not to lose control of her magic.

* * *

The girl, Davina, remained silent as Kol glanced around the room. Catching sight of the artwork, he strode over to examine the pieces, surprised by the amount of talent that the girl had. Unlike Nik, Kol spent more time admiring artwork than painting it and while he'd have people believe that to be a personal choice, he had always been terrible at conveying his feelings and emotions in a piece of art. He much preferred investing said emotions in… other sketchy kinds of behaviour.

"How old are you?" Davina suddenly asked. Her tone was accusatory as she launched this question at him. Kol slowly turned around, taking in the little witch. Her eyes had dried up and there was no trace that she'd been crying a few minutes before. She'd gone from looking vulnerable to defensive and he had a feeling that was because of him.

Cleary she was trying to hide her weaknesses behind a bitchy little personality, something which Kol would never admit that he could relate too.

"Over a thousand years." He said, finally answering her.

Her eyes widened, but that was the only surprise that the little witch let him see on her face, and it was only a flash, returning to the carefully controlled mask a second later. "So you haven't been a witch for over a thousand years. I don't know why Marcel thinks that you can help me then."

"Don't you want my help then?" Kol asked, uncaring. "I don't really give much of a damn either way." He didn't really. If the girl didn't want his knowledge then he could just as easily leave this dingy little attic and go find someone to drain. He missed the flavour of blood in New Orleans and was looking quite forward to indulging and bleeding a few people out.

Davina didn't reply and Kol turned back around, examining more of the artwork. He made his way over to the group of portraits, all of which looked quite hastily drawn, a far cry from the care that he could see in her other work.

"What are these?" He asked, turning back around to look at her while he pointed towards the pictures of the faces.

Davina eyed the paintings with distaste, looking like she'd swallowed something awful. "They're the witches who've done magic. I draw them so that Marcel knows who they are and-"

"And then he punishes them." Kol finished, watching her surprise. "Marcel told me how he keeps them under control."

"They deserve it. If Marcel told you about that then he probably told you about what happened to me too." She said, her eyes suddenly flashing and she took a step towards him. "They tricked me into a sacrifice and I watched them slit the throats of my friends all for the sake of more power." Her voice rose in intensity as Kol listened, her emotions obviously getting the better of her. "They talk about loyalty to our kind and our ancestors but they would just as easily destroy four of us for their own gain."

The link between her emotions and the outbursts of magic wasn't lost on Kol when he noticed the candles in the room reacting to her rage, the physical fire growing as the flames with in her grew hotter.

"Davina…" He muttered, still watching the fire out of the corner of his eyes.

"They deserve to pay for their sins with their lives." She cried, the tears rolling down her cheeks again and her hands balling up into fists. "I'll make them pay. I'm going to kill all of them!"

"Davina! Stop!" Kol yelled suddenly flashing across the room and pushing her – not painfully but firmly – up against the wall, right next to the portraits. His goal wasn't to scare her, just to distract her, and it worked for the most part, with the flames returning to their normal size. "You need to remain in control. If the witches sense you bleeding magic all over the place, they'll know where to find you and you won't get a chance to kill them, because they'll have already slit your throat."

"But I'm strong." She insisted. Her body was shaking a little and her heart racing, and Kol had no idea if that was because of his sudden movements or the magic, but he was hoping that she would remain calm from that point on. He didn't want the whole place to collapse on him because she was angry. "I'm stronger than all of them."

"And they're experienced. They've got thousands of ancestors whispering in their ears and on their side." She averted her eyes from him as he spoke. "The ones that will come after you know how to use their powers and strength it nothing if you don't know how to handle it."

When she didn't say anything, Kol slowly released his hold on her and pulled away, giving her space. "A King could possess the strongest army in the history of time but he'd be sure to fall against his opponent if he didn't know how to harness that strength." He would know. Kol had seen many Kings and Queens's rise due to their power and fall because of it. He'd fought enough battles to know that even an original could fall if they weren't prepared enough for what they were facing.

Davina looked back up at him then, wiping the tears out of her eyes.

"I want to destroy them." She said.

When Marcel had explained everything to him, he'd made it quite clear that his main reason to stop the witches was to prevent them from gaining more power, and while he had always intended to save the girls, that there was something in Davina that caught his eye beyond the power the she represented. In Marcel's words, 'She didn't go alone to the slaughter."

Kol wasn't by nature a sentimental or sympathetic being.

He was violent, irrational and at times down right childish, but he could understand what Marcel was saying when he talked about this girl.

Davina. She was young, seemingly bad tempered and defensive, but she was powerful. Yet it wasn't just that power that resonated with Kol. It was the darkness that she had, a desire for revenge and to rise above those who wronged her, to destroy them. That was what he could truly understand for those were things that he had felt often in his long life.

So when she looked him in the eye and said, "Can you help me?" it was the part of himself that he could see in her that made the Original vampire nod.

"I'll help you."


	3. setting fire to our insides for fun

Chapter 3: Setting Fire to Our Insides for Fun

_And if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones.  
'Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs.  
Setting fire to our insides for fun  
Collecting names of the lovers that went wrong_

* * *

"Hello, Bekah." Kol's greeting was cheerful but he had been surprised to see his sister call him. "How's life in the land of annoying vampires, doppelgangers and average looking Quarterbacks?" He was still annoyed that Matt Donovan and Damon Salvatore were in the land of the living, but he'd made a personal choice to keep the annoying vampire alive when they'd crossed paths in Denver. He was an Original vampire and had nothing but time when it came to thinking up creative ways to end Damon Salvatore's life, and eventually he'd carry out one of them.

"Kol, where have you run off to? None of us have heard from you since Denver and-"Her voice was kind of hysterical and while it wasn't a tone that he was unfamiliar with when coming from his little sister, something was off about her.

"Rebekah? What's wrong?" He asked, his brow furrowed and the hand up against his ear was gripping onto the phone tightly.

"It's mother." Rebekah began, sounding close to tears at having to mention Esther, and Kol sighed. Of course. It was always their mother, or at least the last few weeks it had been. "She came back to Mystic Falls and possessed me. She returned to her own body and she's used Elena's blood to create another original vampire, designed to hunt us to the ends of the earth. He's not completing the transition but she made something else: an indestructible white oak stake."

His sister's voice was tangled and the words came out at recorded speed, making it difficult for Kol to decipher them, but he managed.

"And what of mother now?" He asked. That was the most important question. If her abomination failed and was left with a choice about becoming a vampire, something must have happened to her.

"She's dead." Rebekah said. "This time, for good, but Kol, we haven't gotten the stake yet and until then it can be used against us."

"You want me to help you get it?" Kol didn't exactly fancy that. If there was a weapon that could truly kill him, he didn't want to be anywhere near it unless it was in his possession, but that didn't exactly make him willing to risk his neck to obtain it. Self-preservation was too deeply ingrained in his blood and he cared too much about his life.

"No. I want you to stay away, Kol. Klaus claims that he was the one who started their bloodline, it had to be him, which means that should someone from Mystic Falls get a hold of it, and they won't risk killing him."

"Do they even know that he started it?" Kol asked, remembering his confrontation with Damon and Elena. Not much time had passed since then for them to find out the truth. The trail of vampires they were following had ended with Mary Porter and he'd enjoyed running a baseball bat through her heart to ensure that was as far as they got.

"If he tells them, they won't risk it. But you and I are the ones they'll try and destroy. Until Nik gets it, it's probably best if you keep away." She replied. Rebekah telling Kol to stay away was all well and good for him, but he raised an eyebrow at her lack of mention of herself.

"And what about you?" Kol questioned.

"I'm going to stay. They don't have any reason to hurt me at the moment." She replied, attempting to sound confident at this and Kol just sighed again.

"I'll stay away." He murmured into the phone. "Be careful Rebekah." For the briefest moment, Kol was truly concerned for the wellbeing of his baby sister. He wasn't one to give much of a damn about others, unless their longevity had some direct influence on him, but he did care about Rebekah a lot more than he would let on. Kol had watched and interacted with humanity for a thousand years and out of all his siblings, he felt that with Rebekah he felt the most normal, even possibly a little human. They laughed, they joked, and they fought, but neither of them had dropped to the levels of low that they had with their other siblings. They were both each other's exceptions to the rest of the family drama.

"I will." She replied as he pulled the phone away from his ear to hang up, but she hurriedly interjected again. "Kol, wait! Where are you?" She asked.

The only sign on his annoyance at this question was the slight creasing of his forehead as Kol frowned, though his voice sounded completely normal as he responded. "Vegas. Lots of gambling and women wearing skimpy outfits." He replied, nonchalant, the proceeding to end the call without waiting for a response from Rebekah.

He had no reason to lie about where he was, not really. If he had to pinpoint one, he would have liked to say that it was because he didn't want to answer questions about the city. He knew that his siblings thought Marcel dead and he knew that mentioning New Orleans would bring this up for Rebekah, and he didn't want to lie to her about his living status, should she mention him in conversation, but that wasn't the full truth.

New Orleans had been a home for all of them. Nik, Rebekah, Elijah and Kol had built the city up from nothing into what it became. He remembered his rage at Nik for daggering him in Europe to get him on the boat to America, but there had been a hidden joy at his discovery for where they landed up and when Nik undaggered him soon after they landed in New Orleans, it became a sanctuary.

He'd moved away throughout the centuries, returned to Europe and had some interesting times in Spain in the 1800's, but he'd always come back and while he truly loved the city, it had always been his sibling's place more than his. He'd never been part of their 'always and forever' or the trio that they made up, so his real reason for not telling Rebekah his true location was because, for once, he wanted to have the city to himself.

Annoyed at his own sentimental thoughts, Kol shoved his phone back into his pocket and continued up to the attic, having stopped in the church when his phone rang. In one arm he had a brown paper bag that contained a number of things he was going to utilise to help Davina with her magic, and having met the young witch, he wasn't entirely sure she was going to appreciate his help straight away, but he didn't really care.

He heard her move from inside of her room when one of the stairs creaked under his feet, alerting her to his presence. The door swung open before he reached it, and Davina grinned at him with excitement.

Apart from Marcel, he'd gotten the impression that he was the only one she'd really interacted with and he couldn't blame her for being happy about contact with another person. Kol knew all too well what it was like to be on the outer part of society. He'd never been locked in an attic but he'd always been on the outskirts of crowds and when he did interact, he tried to force all the attention onto himself.

"Hello, darling." He greeted, completely ignoring her previous request to use her name, but mainly because the frown that followed on her face made him laugh. She pouted out her lips and looked like a child, but she didn't say anything. Kol stopped at the edge of the doorway, waiting patiently for her to respond.

"Come in." Davina said, looking at the things in his arms curiously. "What's all that?" She asked, walking behind him as he came into her room and made over to the small vanity table where he placed the brown bag.

"Things to help you." Kol replied, pulling out a small bunch of flowers and handing them to Davina, giving her the smile of proper gentlemen that he'd perfected over the years - wether he meant it or now. "For you." He said, turning back to the bag but catching the smile out of the corner of his eye. He continued emptying the bag, pulling out a number of candles and a bottle of water as well.

The young witch rested the flowers on her table and stood beside him, looking at the other things. Kol noticed with amusement that she only really reached just past his elbow in height and had to restrain from making a comment about it, but only because he didn't like the idea of pissing her off. He couldn't die, but in some ways that could make the pain a witch inflicted on him even worse, because there was always the possibility that it wouldn't end.

"Leave the flowers and the water alone for now. We're starting with the candles." He said, grabbing them and moving them to the floor. He placed them in a row on the ground in front of her and then stepped back, sliding into a plush chair a few feet away, kicking his feet up onto her bed and resting them there, looking completely comfortable.

Davina glared, rolling her eyes a little. "I already know how to light candles." She said as if this was obvious. Kol smirked. He'd assumed that. It was something you learnt basically in the first class of witch 101, but it was completely different lighting the candles with an average amount of power than it was when you were overwhelmed with it.

He nodded towards them and flicked his hand in encouragement. "Go on then."

The girl smirked and flashed her hand out towards them. Fire sprung up but the flames were at least a foot in height. "See?" Davina smiled, looking quite pleased with herself. Kol laughed.

"Can you light them without burning the place to pieces?" He found it amusing when the smug expression dropped from her face at his brushing off of her magic. "You're putting too much power into it. Unless you want to burn someone to pieces, you don't actually need to use that much strength. What you need to do is measure your magic out when you're lighting them, so the candles don't go crazy like they are right now. Start small and then work your way up to a bigger flame, so you know what level of power you need for your goals."

Davina frowned at him but she still looked determined as the fire reflected in her eyes. She knelt down in front of the candles and blew the slightest bit of air out of her mouth, extinguishing the powerful flames easily. That made him raise his eyebrows a little, surprised at the ease of that, but she didn't see. Instead, she was suddenly very focused on the candles.

"Make sure to stay calm." He added as an afterthought. The lines creasing her brow, while they may have been a by-product of her focus, didn't look particularly calm from where he was watching. He watched as Davina took a deep breath and then flicked her hand at the fire again. It worked, except that the fire was even more intense than the first time around and the young witch shot out of the way of her own flames, her expression suddenly concerned as she became aware of the fact that she really didn't have control of her powers, nor did she have any true concept of how much power she possessed. It was easy to say she had the power of four witches, but Davina had no knowledge of how far that power would go or the limits it had.

"I'm sorry." She muttered, pulling herself back towards the candles and putting them out again, which apparently wasn't the hard part.

"Just try again." Kol replied, not shifting from his position, nor looking at all concerned by the failure. He at least knew that if she needed to defend herself, she could probably set fire to anyone that tried to attack her. "When I was human, my siblings were all interested in things other than magic. My brother Finn followed my father around like he was some kind of hero and even though he was close to our mother; he never had much of an interest in witchcraft. My brother Niklaus was more interested in art and music. Elijah did what he needed to do to ensure all of us would survive, like hunting and working, which he all did, but he was engrossed in it and then Rebekah spent most of her time chasing after the village boys, while my brother Henrik was too young to be able to do much with his powers. I was the only one who really took the time to learn and practice." He had no idea why he was saying this, but it all just kind of came out. He didn't ever talk to anyone about his human life other than his siblings, so this was something new to him. "My mother would sit with me for hours and watch as I lit fires over and over again to try and strengthen my powers. She'd make me do it until she was happy with how I'd progressed and then she'd move me onto something else."

"What magic did you practice?" Davina asked, engrossed in his words and doing nothing to hide the curiosity on her face.

"My mother practiced dark magic when she was doing her own spells but she taught me with spirit magic and channelling." He replied, remembering some of the spells that he'd witnessed his mother do, the post prominent obviously being the one that turned him into what he was.

He remembered the moment that he woke up and tasted the first drop of blood forced into his mouth by his father and, like Rebekah described it, it was euphoric. It was a high that never seemed to end but when the first feelings of that bloodlust were quenched, it was then that Kol had felt the absence of magic for the first time. That had been when the high ended and he'd had his first experience with the incredible lows that came with being a vampire. It hit him harder than his siblings, who seemed to not even notice the loss of their powers, and it had made the first few months of being a vampire complete and utter hell.

Even today, the one thing that he could truly not forgive his mother for when it came to becoming a vampire, was that she'd forcibly taken his magic away from him.

_"__Be quiet Kol. Your brother knows virtue that you cannot even imagine."_

_"__You're a curse on this Earth."_

He thought of those words often and they filled him with hate and rage like the fire that burnt around them that night that his mother intended to end the vampire race. He loved being a vampire but he despised her hatred for him when she'd made him what he was. When he first turned, embracing what he was became the only way that he could cope with that loss, and the pain of that all came back to her. Esther.

"I probably would have practiced other types of magic but we turned before I could, and I lost my powers when that happen." Kol muttered, snapping out of the mental rut he was in and looking back at Davina. "Try again." He finally said, after another brief pause.

* * *

"I'm surprised to hear you talk about your mother like that." Marcel said as Kol made his way down from the attic, having left Davina with the candles and entrusted her to not blow the attic up while continuing to practice. He intended to check on her a day or two later to see how she was going. He'd been so involved in helping her that the Original hadn't even heard Marcel when he came in downstairs. Considering he and Davina had practiced for at least another half an hour after he'd mentioned Esther, it kind of irked Kol that Marcel had been listening that whole time. "She always seemed to be a bit of an off topic with you and your siblings."

"She is." Kol said, firmly.

"Then why were you telling Davina about her?" Marcel asked. There didn't seem to be any bad intentions in his questioning, just curiosity. Kol couldn't blame him. Marcel had been raised by Klaus and a part of their family for centuries but he'd known for a fact that the young vampire had felt as sidelined as he had, so this was all new to him.

"The information was relevant." Kol replied, watching the vampire with curiosity. He wondered what the reaction would be if his siblings discovered that Marcel was alive. Rebekah would probably immediately move to reclaim her lost love. Despite her supposed infatuation with that stupid high school quarterback, Kol didn't have much faith in her constantly shifting romantic intentions. Elijah, Kol believed that he probably wouldn't care too much about Marcel's actual wellbeing as opposed to wanting an explanation to his survival and he had no idea about his brother Klaus. Nik might be overjoyed at the idea of Marcel's survival, but he knew that Marcel himself wouldn't be pleased by being reunited with his 'father'. Unlike those three, he'd never been completely disenchanted with Marcel's desires to slip out from under their shadows.


	4. stray from the hallowed ground

Chapter 4: Stray From the Hallowed Ground

_Devotion save me now  
I don't wanna stray from the hallowed ground  
I'll turn temptation down  
I'm asking you to take me to safety this time  
- Devotion (Hurts)_

* * *

"Would you like anything else?" The woman at the bar asked him, pouring out the cheap drink Kol had ordered into a much a glass that appeared to be much more expensive than the liquor. She smiled brightly but the look she gave him was curious.

"No thank you, sweetheart." He said, gently taking the glass from her and not hesitating to brush his fingers against her hand as he did so. She was still giving him the strange look so he dared to ask, "Like what you see?"

The bartender laughed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to stare. I just found it kind of amusing that someone as well dressed as you would order the cheapest drink on the menu. When most people come to New Orleans they're looking for something a little more than inexpensive liquor."

Kol laughed and took a sip of the drink. "I have a great appreciation for cheap liquor." He replied, just the taste bringing back fond memories. Cheap liquor, easy women and long nights always seemed to go together for him, so while his siblings would throw down money for the most expensive scotch or bourbon, Kol wasn't so picky. "And believe it or not, I've actually lived in New Orleans for a while before."

"Sorry." The bartender replied. With the conversation started, he finally took a good look at her. She was a pretty woman with long brown hair and skin that had a slightly copper tint; not truly pale or truly dark. The name tag pinned to her chest read 'Jane-Anne'. "I was going off your accent."

Kol chuckled as he drowned the rest of his drink, placing it back down on the beautifully polished bar top before speaking again. "I get that a lot, but I'm quite accustomed to this part of the world." He told her, nudging the glass back towards her. "Would you mind pouring me another, love?"

"No problem." As Jane-Anne began to refill the drink, a person further down the bar stood up, putting her money down and making her way past Kol as she left. His head turned slightly when he caught her scent, a smirk crossing his face when he got a quick look at her. She looked quite like the girl Nik was spending all of his time pining over back in Mystic Falls, Caroline. This one the same bouncy blonde hair and blue-green eyes, but compared to the annoying baby vampire, she had a slightly different face shape and was a little smaller in height.

"Here you go." Jane-Anne slid the second glass towards Kol but his attention was elsewhere and he stood up, quickly pulling a handful of cash from his pocket and handing it to her. He didn't touch the second drink and he was well aware that the amount he'd given her was exorbitant even taking tips into account. "Keep the rest." He muttered, hurrying out so that he could follow the lookalike down the street.

It was late at night and most of the people milling around were either drunk or completely lost in whatever they were doing, so no one noticed when Kol sped towards the girl with his vampire speed, suddenly stepping out in front of her. The girl clutched at the bag she was carrying when he appeared.

"Oh no don't worry, I'm not trying to steal your things." Kol said with a bright smile, leaning forward and compelling her. "What's your name?" He asked.

Calm because of his compulsion, the girl smiled brightly. "I'm Amelia."

"Amelia." Kol muttered, enunciating the syllables of her name as he ran it over his tongue. "And where are you from?"

"California."

"Are you visiting New Orleans?"

"Just for a week." Amelia replied. "I wanted a holiday."

That was all Kol needed. Marcel had made it clear that his vampires left the locals alone for the sake of them turning a blind eye to all the sketchy supernatural things that went on in the Quarter, and while he wasn't exactly one for following the rules, Kol had a level of respect for the city that he didn't even have for people he should supposedly care about. A seductive smile on his face, Kol grabbed the girl's shoulders and flashed into one of the darker alleys in the Quarter.

Her eyes were wide when he placed her down but she didn't react because of the compulsion. Kol grinned down at her, reaching out to trace his fingers down the side of her cheek, brushing her hair away from her neck with meticulous precision before bring his hand down to where her pulse was beating, gently feeling the blood shift underneath her flawless skin. There was nothing gentle about his next movements though as grabbed her and pulled her against him, his eyes turning bloody red as his teeth tore through her throat. He had no concern for her, having intended to drink her dry from the start.

It had been a long time since he'd been able to truly revel in the kill. He'd been daggered for a century only to wake up in a small town with an already very present population of vampires before being told by his mother that he couldn't kill for the sake of it. He'd managed a few days out of Mystic Falls before Klaus wanted him to go to Denver, which once again required him to not attract any attention to himself, and Kol was over it.

He didn't care who cared about this girl, who loved her or who she might love. He didn't care that she was young and should have a life ahead of her and he certainly didn't care about anything other than taste of her blood, which was divine.

Kol continued to drink from her long after she went limp in his arms and her heart gave out. He didn't stop until the blood ran dry and there was nothing more that he could get from her, because only then had she served her purpose. He let the blonde slip from his arms and watched as her lifeless body fell to the ground. A slither of light from somewhere outside of the alleyway shone over her face and he started into those blue-green eyes that were unseeing yet still wide open.

He nudged her with the toe of his boot until she was deeper into the alley, completely away from the light and not visible from the outside. He didn't care what became of her body, though he assumed that someone would probably find her before her corpse became too disgusting and gory.

Kol wiped the blood off his face and took one last look at the Caroline-lookalike before he turned around to leave the alleyway. Having been so caught up in the bloodlust, he was surprised to see someone standing near him, watching him with an amused expression.

"Who are you?" Kol spat, glaring at the woman. She hadn't screamed or tried to call for help, which was a point in her favor, but it was really only his curiosity that prevented him from snapping her neck or draining her like he had with Amelia.

"My name is Sabine." She said, taking a step forward towards him and Kol noted that she was completely absent of fear, something he found amusing with what she's just witnessed. "And before you try and kill me, you might want to know that I'm from the French Quarter coven of witches."

Kol raised an eyebrow, tilting his head to the side as he looked her over. "And what does a witch from the coven want with me?"

"I know who you are." She said, still moving towards him. "You're Kol Mikaelson. An Original Vampire." Every word that came out of the witches' mouth was measured, and she started to circle around him as she spoke. "Son of the Original witch Esther, and Mikael, The Destroyer." Having done a full circle around him, Sabine stopped in front of Kol once more. "You and your family helped build this city and you, Kol Mikaelson, spent some time with my coven in the past."

Kol nodded, though he couldn't see the reason that she was approaching him now. "Over a century ago." It was his turn to take a step forward now, slightly threatening as he towered over her. "What do you want from me now?"

"As a friend of witches in the past, I'm asking you to hear me out. You're familiar with the Lafayette Cemetery, are you not?" Kol nodded and she continued. "There are lots of witches there who wish to speak with you."

Kol frowned, glaring the witch down with an annoyance that was only intensifying. He hated it when people wanted things of him. The only reason he was even helping Davina was because he found her and her powers interesting, but he couldn't see what this coven would be able to offer him for whatever service they might be seeking.

That was when he remembered about Davina, and it occurred to him that these were the members of the coven she was born too, the ones that were seeking her. He hadn't given it much thought until now, but it suddenly made sense as to why this witch, Sabine, was suddenly standing in front of him and asking Kol to hear her out.

"Fine. I'll listen to your coven, but only because of my past connections with them." Kol finally said. "I will not make any promises in helping you with whatever you want." She hadn't out rightly sad that they wanted something, but Kol knew the values of witches very well. To seek out a vampire, especially an original, generally meant that they wanted aid with something that they could not achieve on their own.

He followed Sabine out of the alleyway, neither the witch nor he paying any mind to the body left dumped there, and another woman strode into step with them. He recognized Jane-Anne from the bar, having abruptly departed from her company only a few minutes before.

"You knew who I was." He commented, watching her with a careful expression.

Jane-Anne nodded. "Yes. Living in a city of vampires does that to you."

Kol rolled his eyes at her non-direct answer, but didn't bother pointing out what he really meant. Jane-Anne had known exactly who he was. She'd known that he wasn't just any vampire; that he was an Original, and he could only assume that he'd contacted this Sabine woman to serve as some kind of spokesperson for her coven's cause – whatever that may be – when he'd left the bar.

* * *

It didn't take too long to arrive at the cemetery and Kol stood at the gate, all too familiar with the constant boundary spells against his kind, watching as Sabine and Jane-Anne moved through with no issues.

"Come in." Jane-Anne said, watching as Kol tested the boundary before stepping fully inside. They turned, walking deeper through the graves. It was nostalgic to be back in the cemetery after such a long time. It was one thing to see how New Orleans had changed after a century, but seeing the added names on the graves of witches and humans that he used to know, well it was something else entirely. He continued behind Sabine and Jane-Anne until they reached the very center and they gestured into one of the crypts. Kol gave them a warning look before heading in. If they knew of him, of his history, then they would know very well that he was capable of taking on witches when he knew just as much about magic as those who practiced it.

A number of witches already stood inside, waiting for him. He recognized none of them, but that was to be expected.

"Kol Mikaelson." One of the witches stepped forward, saying his name with a reluctance that made it very clear she was keen on his presence, but she still made her way towards him. "My name is Agnes and I'm one of the Elders of this coven. We know a lot about you and how close you've been with witches over your… long… life, including this coven."

Kol nodded. "Why am I hear, Agnes?" He asked, staring the woman down.

Agnes opened her mouth to answer but the response came from someone behind her, a girl who looked similar to Jane-Anne and Kol realized that they were sisters. "We need your help." She said, interjecting.

"Who are you?" He questioned, glancing at Jane-Anne to confirm the connection between them.

"I'm Sophie. Sophie Deveraux." She replied. Agnes looked disgruntled at being interrupted but didn't reply and allowed for Sophie to continue. Kol could immediately tell that whatever was about to come up was something that related to Sophie Deveraux on a person level, unlike the others who all seemed to be there for business. Her eyes were wide and there was an air of desperation around her, like her last hope was being dangled in front of her eyes but she was scared to reach out and grab it. "I'm assuming that you've heard of the Harvest Ritual, from your history with our coven."

Kol nodded, deciding then that these witches weren't aware of his knowledge of Davina if they started with that. "I know of it."

"We need to complete it, but it's only half done." She said. "Marcel and his vampires stopped it when we tried and if we don't manage to finish the ritual our magic will be gone for good. We'd like to ask for your help." She was putting everything out there as if there was no way that he could say no and this irked Kol more than it really should have. He didn't really need to care about the doings of some witches and their powers, but he hated the assumption in this young woman's tone.

"Really?" Kol asked, eyes glinting mischievously, his tone suddenly cheerful but there was no denying the dangerous edge to it. He sounded like a bomb that was about to explode; one that would truly enjoying watching the destruction unfold when he did. He _really _didn't like people asking him for favors. Marcel had been lucky, but these witches might not be. "And why would you think that I'd actually help you with this? I don't care about your powers and Marcel happened to be quite close with my family back in the day."

Sophie Deveraux's face betrayed her nervousness for a brief second before she managed to hide the visible signs of it, but Kol could hear her heartbeat and it was racing. "We know that your family was close with Marcel. Your brother Klaus sired him, and we know that your close to him, otherwise he wouldn't have let you back into the city." Kol laughed at the thought of Marcel trying to stop him when he couldn't be killed, but he didn't interrupt the witch. "To renew our power, there had to be a sacrifice and Marcel made off with one of our witches who were meant to be offered to the ancestors, Davina. Without her death and rebirth, we'll lose our magic for good."

"Again, I ask, why should I care?" Kol thought that it should be quite obvious to these witches that if they weren't enticing enough, that he would just run right off to Marcel and tell him, or slaughter them all himself in their cemetery for bothering him. "I don't have much interest in the longevity of your magic and I'm not in the business of aiding in witch sacrifices."

"Don't try and pretend that you care who lives and who die, not after what I just witnessed." Sabine suddenly said from behind him. He turned, watching her, but careful not to let anything show on his face. It hadn't escaped him that these witches hadn't mentioned that they needed to sacrifice a teenage girl for this Harvest, or they just assumed that he wouldn't care for the life of some young girl. He usually didn't, but even he wasn't one to kill children for no reason, and that's all Davina was, a child, and Kol couldn't think of any real reason that she deserved to die.

"We need you to help us find her. Marcel is hiding her and using her to stop us from practicing magic." Sophie said and Kol rounded back on her, that sickly sweet smile still on his face.

"You still haven't told me what's in this for me. I might not care who lives or dies as was so kindly pointed out, but I'd want something in return for my efforts." It was obvious that he had no confidence in the witches offering him anything of interest and when it came down to personal investment; Kol was finding Davina a better source of entertainment than these witches could be.

"The city." Agnes said, finally saying something again. "When we complete the harvest, we'll use our magic to drive out Marcel and then you can take control of the French Quarter."

Kol narrowed his eyes.

He hadn't expected that.

He'd spent years living in New Orleans, helping his siblings build it, but it had never been truly his. It had always belonged to Niklaus, Elijah and Rebekah, never him, and the look on this witches face told him that she knew this.

"And how do you think my control would be any better for you than your current situation? You could easily use your powers to drive me out as well." He pointed out, dryly.

He had no intention of leaving this city for a while and didn't like the idea of being forcibly removed like these witches were planning to do with Marcel.

"You've been a friend of witches." She said, as if this made everything obvious, but Kol was very much aware that loyalty only went so far with both of their species.

"Give us the girl, Davina Claire, and you can have New Orleans." Sophie Deveraux reaffirmed.


	5. try delusion for a while

Chapter 5 – Try Delusion for a While

_Swing me these sorrows  
And try delusion for a while.  
It's such a beautiful lie.  
You've got to lose inhibition -  
Romance your ego for a while.  
Come on, give it a try.  
- Illuminated (Hurts)_

* * *

_"__Do it again." Esther said, watching the smoke rise from the remnants of a fire that Kol must have lit and put out over a hundred times in the last few hours. He frowned and groaned and there were a thousand different complaints on the tip of his tongue, ready to come spilling out, but he bit them back and focused. A few seconds later, fire rose out of the ashes and burnt kindling and he smiled, proud of himself. _

_He glanced up at Esther. "See, mother? I can actually do it." He lowered his hands in front of the flames, returning the fire to nothing once more, as if to further prove his point. "I think it's about time that you start teaching me some real stuff. You've really only taught me how to start a fire in winter."_

_There was some sense to though. He would never go so far as to deny that he liked the idea of being able to start the fire with nothing more than a wave of his hands when winter came. _

_Esther smiled a little, so small that it hardly showed on her face and it was gone within a second. "I will, when you're ready."_

_Kol stood up, taller than the woman who had raised him. "Mother, I'm twenty years old, an adult. I can handle much more than fire when it comes to magic. I want to try other spells, like the things that you do."_

_He'd seen her perform countless spells and he was sick of fire._

_Over and over again. Day after day. Fire, fire, fire._

_"__You need to be able to fully control and understand your magic before you try the kind of magic I practice, otherwise it would be much too strenuous for you." Esther replied, glancing down at the kindling once more. "Try again, but it's not long now, Kol. You are doing very well."_

_Kol didn't outwardly react to the praise but he appreciated it regardless. He kneeled back down in front of the fire and was just about to light it again when the door to their cottage opened and his father came striding in, his boots thumping against the ground loudly. Kol immediately stood up as Mikael took in the scene around him. _

_His father sighed, turning from Kol to look at his wife. There was tenderness in his eyes when he looked at Esther that he never had when he looked at Kol or his siblings. "I have the upmost respect for your gifts, my dear, but the boy should be doing things other than practicing magic. This family's survival depends on our ability to hunt, and with one of them already being a complete failure at it, Kol would serve us much better by picking up the slack." Despite the fact that Mikael was talking about Kol, he didn't once glance in his direction and it was as if he didn't exist to the man, or like he wasn't actually in the same room at the very least. Still, pretending Kol wasn't there was one thing, but what he hated most was the tone his father took when he spoke of Niklaus. They all did, but none of them were in a position to say anything or they would be beat if they did._

_"__If you must, teach Rebekah of these things. The girl spends too much time running around with her head stuck in fairytales and daydreams." Mikael continued, his voice firm._

_There was a moment's pause before Esther slowly turned to look at Kol over Mikael's shoulder and Kol sighed a little, knowing what was coming. "Kol, go hunt with your brother."_

* * *

Davina was quick to invite Kol in when she sensed him standing at her door and as soon as she crossed into her room, she launched into a hurried, "Please tell me you're not making me light candles over and over again today. I've been doing it so much that I've been dreaming about them." She pointed to a new painting on her easel that was currently drying. "I've even painted one."

Kol looked amused at this but didn't answer, all but confirming her fears that she'd be doing that again but he laughed at the look of horror on her face and shook his head. "No." Kol replied. "How are the flowers that I gave you?" He asked.

She turned and looked at them, still on her vanity table where she'd placed them the other day.

"Well, they're dead now. If I'd had some water to put them in then they would have lasted a bit longer." She was a little disappointed that they had died. It was only natural of course, but it had been nice to brighten things up. Marcel tried to keep her comfortable and with everything she needed, but there were always some things that would be lost to her from inside the attic.

"That's okay." Kol replied. He crossed her room, picking up the flowers and bringing them over to her, holding them out in front of him. "Another step to control is using your powers with things that have… expired. If you're focused, and know how much magic to use, you can bring them back."

Davina glanced down at the flowers and then back up at him, but despite her hesitation she reached out and took the bunch from his hands, holding them in front of her in her own.

Then she looked back up at him.

"How do I actually do that?"

Kol met her eyes. "Before they're cut, flowers have roots obviously, and that's how they survive. It's not really a spell that brings them back, rather just letting your magic flow through them. It's like with the fire, a burst of power, but something much gentler at the same time. You need to be careful because even in death they're fragile, and it's easy to break something fragile. "

"Like TLC?"

"Like what?" Kol looked at Davina like she'd suddenly sprouted wings.

"Tender Loving Care." It was the witches' turn to look amused and Kol didn't like it.

"Yes, like that." He hurriedly nodded as if he actually understood what she was saying, which he didn't, but it didn't matter as long as she understood.

Davina took a deep breath. "Okay, I think I know what you mean." She said, focusing on the flowers. She was much calmer than when she had been working with the fire and it pleased Kol to know that she was capable to controlling her emotions at times, unlike what he'd seen previously. She was apparently in a good mood too and absent of the teenage attitude she'd had demonstrating her powers the other day.

She was focused, and eager to learn now that she realized he did actually know a little of what he was talking about.

He watched her as she let her power move through the flowers, surprised to see it actually visualizing itself in the veins close to her hand, like a little white light shimmering through her, but it wasn't something that seemed to bother her so he didn't question her about it. The spread of green started from where her fingertips were holding the stems and it spread until the flowers in her hands returned to life.

Seeing what had occurred, Davina smiled. "They look like new."

"They are." Kol replied. "But I think you know what you have to do now."

She did, and she frowned as she sat down on the ground, preparing the give and take life from the flowers over and over again until Kol was satisfied.

* * *

_"__Niklaus!" Kol called out, catching sight of his older brother through the trees. Niklaus had a bow and arrow all lined up, not pointing it at an animal but rather at a tree, apparently attempting target practice instead of hunting. Kol frowned. Elijah had spent years when they were younger trying to teach Niklaus how to hunt with a bow and arrow, but he'd never been able to succeed much in the endeavor. Their father knew this, knew that Niklaus was much better with a sword, but he had forced him out with the bow as if he wanted his son to fail. It had always been like that as long as Kol could remember._

_Niklaus lowered the bow as he heard Kol's voice, turning around. "Brother? What are you doing out here? I thought you were with mother."_

_"__I was." Kol said as he approached, holding his own bow that he'd taken to hunt with. Elijah's coaching had been much more successful with Kol than he had been with Niklaus. "Father came and asked her to send me out with you."_

_His brother lowered his eyes down to the ground, knowing very well what that meant. It was Mikael's way of telling him that he had no faith in his hunting abilities. Sending Kol was like a slap in the face to him, but there was no way that Kol could refuse his father's orders, and he was glad that at least Niklaus knew that._

_"__Come on, don't worry about it. Let's just get something." Kol said, giving Niklaus an encouraging slap on the back. "The sooner we do, the sooner we both get to go home."_

_Niklaus nodded and the two of them moved even further through the forest, both of them walking as soft and slow as possible, taking in everything around them and looking for any signs of animal life. After a few minutes of this, Kol caught sight of the fresh tracks in the dirt in front of them and slowly brought out his arm to stop his brother from continuing any further. _

_He glanced around, listening for anything and there was a rustle to his left. There was no wind, leaving Kol certain about what he would find through the gap in the trees there. He slowly brought out an arrow and notched his bow, keeping it out in front of him so that he was ready to shoot at a moment's notice. Kol carefully made his way towards the gap in the trees, peaking through to look for the source of the sound._

_There was a deer less than ten meters away, grazing at a patch of grass and blissfully unaware of Kol's presence. He carefully drew the bow back, pausing as the deer's ears twitched, worried that he might have given himself away, but it quickly when back to eating and he was able to let the arrow fly before it even thought of getting away._

_"__I have been out here for hours and you managed to bring something down in a few minutes?" Niklaus groaned when he heard the deer slump to the ground. He hurried up to Kol and pushed his younger brother side to break into the small clearing and look at Kol's kill. "That's actually a good size." Niklaus was obviously envious but he still smiled at Kol nonetheless as his younger brother made his way other to the deer as well._

_"__Yes, it is." Kol said, removing the arrow from its eye and placing it back in his quiver. He reached behind Niklaus and grabbed one of his brother's arrows and pushed it back through the deer's head._

_"__What are you doing?" Niklaus asked, completely confused by Kol's actions._

_Kol smiled. "Making it look like you shot him." He said. They'd each made their own arrows in a distinct style and he wondered if making it look like Niklaus' kill, rather than his own, would earn some reprieve for his brother from their father's disdain, even if only for a short while._

_Understanding dawned on his older brother's face. "Are you sure?" He asked._

_Kol nodded. "Take it back to father. I'll be sure to kill something much smaller to bring back to him later." He couldn't confront Mikael directly, but he still wanted to help his brother in any way that he could. They'd all been tired of Mikael's treatment of him for a very long time._

* * *

Kol had lost track of how many times Davina had spelled the flower when she dropped her hands to the ground and looked up at him. "What's wrong?" He asked, surprised by her sudden stop.

"Why New Orleans?" The young witch asked, looking curious.

Kol leaned forward, resting his head on his hand as he regarded her. "What do you mean?"

"Why are you here in New Orleans? Why this city when there's a whole world to explore."

Kol grinned. "Because I've already been everywhere else, darling, and this cities quite special to me." He frowned a little though at a new thought. "Why the sudden curiosity?"

Davina shifted her body, drawing her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them, rocking a little from her spot on the ground. "Being in this attic, not able to go outside, it's made me think a lot about the world and everything that's out there." She said, sounding a little distant. "Because we practice ancestral magic, my parents never even thought of leaving the city and I've never even been outside of Louisiana because of that, but there's so much to see and I just have to wonder about what it would all be like." She paused again, turning her gaze towards him with a strange intensity that he hadn't seen on her before. "Where were you born?"

"There's a town in Mystic Falls, Virginia. I was born and grew up there a thousand years ago." There was no fondness when he spoke the name of the town. He didn't really care much for it. Davina had been right when she said that there was a whole world to explore. "I didn't get to see any of the world until after I became a vampire. We lived as a family for a very short time after our transition but something happened and we all went our separate ways. My siblings Niklaus, Rebekah and Elijah left together, and my brother Finn went one way and I went another. I didn't see all of them again for over a century."

He'd made his way through Eastern Europe, visiting every country that he knew of in the region and relishing in being a vampire. He made no contact with his siblings as he travelled but he knew that they heard stories of him and his brutality when it came to killing and turning humans, just as he had heard the tales of the group of blood drinking demons that had followed the conquest of the Normans throughout the south. He wouldn't have even joined them in Italy in 1114 if it hadn't been for Finn tracking him down in Russia at the time, along with the vampire Sage, and extending the invitation.

"Where did you go?" Davina asked, hanging onto his every word.

"My parents came from Europe and my mother used to tell me stories of the places she'd been when I was a child. That was the first place. People fled Europe for better lands but I jumped on the first boat I could find that was going back." He remembered that day, when he finally jumped on his horse and ran away like he had always wanted to. "My mother had never been but another person had told me stories of a city called Dubrovnik. It's in what you call Croatia today. I made my way there and spent quite a few years before moving on."

"I've heard of that city." Davina said, looking wistful. "It's near Korcula."

"I've been there too." Kol said, memories returning of the small city that Davina mentioned, and they were fond ones. "Modern day Montenegro."

Davina nodded along before launching into another question. "Have you been to Paris?"

"Not in recent years, but I was there when they opened the Louvre." He told her, though he imagined that it would be a lot more impressive in modern times with centuries to improve the collection since he'd last been there. "I was also around for the uprising in 1832."

"I've read _Les Miserables_ ." Davina said, recognizing the date immediately. Kol couldn't help but be surprised by this. His brief interactions with teenagers in the modern age had basically led him to believe that the majority of them spent most of their time absorbed in video games and on the internet. Catching his surprise, Davina also added, "I'm a fan of classical music too. Classic anything is my favorite."

"Did you know that Victor Hugo, the author, was actually at the uprising? He was writing a play in the Tuileries Gardens when everything started."

"How do you know that?"

"We were friends." Kol admitted. "I admired his work, though I didn't get to actually read _Les Miserables _for a long time after it was published." That was due to an unfortunate daggering incident, though he had gotten around to it eventually.

Davina looked impressed by this but she still seemed ready to launch into even more questions. She reminded him of what he was like when he was younger, so eager to explore and travel. _"Parlez-vous français?" (Do you speak French?)_

_"__Couramment."_ _(Fluently) _He replied, a smile touching his lips. Not a lot of people who knew Kol would exactly call him a romantic, but it was one of his favourite languages and cultures.

_"__J'ai appris le français à l'école, mais je n'ai pas été en mesure de pratiquer dans un moment_." _(I learned French at school, but I haven't been able to practice for a while.) _ Davina said, stuttering a bit here and there but he was impressed.

_"__Vous êtes très bon." (You are very good)_

_"__Merci."_ She replied. "What other languages do you speak?"

Kol had to actually think about that one. There were a large number that he spoke well, but some had fallen out of use over time, but he was certain that he could pick them up again given the chance, because he'd still been able to communicate in all of them a century ago. "A number of Eastern European languages. Italian, French and English obviously." He paused, racking his brain. "Aramaic, though that's a dead language now. Quite a few African languages as well, and Haitian Creole from some time I spent in Haiti."

"Wow." Davina muttered. "I'd like to learn more languages but I don't think I'll ever be able to get to that level."

"I wouldn't be surprised if you could." Kol said, not at all mocking her. Actually, he was quite serious. "You seem rather intelligent for someone your age. You probably far surpass them."

"I'd like to travel the world someday." Davina told him. "When this is all over, the witches will lose their powers and there will be nothing holding me here anymore. I'll be free to go and that's what I'd like to do."

"You will." Kol replied. "You'll see everything that this world had to offer, darling." His words were sincere, probably the most sincere of anything that had come out of his mouth recently, and he smiled gently at her as he looked back down at the flower. "I think it's time to try that again."

Davina sighed but accepted the end of the conversation, returning her attention to the flowers in front of her while Kol continued to watch. His conversation with the witches came back to him as her observed Davina practicing her magic. He hadn't told them that he knew where she was, and they hadn't assumed that he did, but it occurred to him how easy it would be to hand her over and supposedly gain the city of New Orleans.

His time with the witches of various covens and countries had told him one thing, and that was that they were all as untrustworthy as each other. The only loyalty they had was to themselves and when he thought about their actions and the girl in front of him, Kol was certain that Davina was better than all of them.

They looked at her and saw nothing but a child that they could bend to their will and sacrifice for their power. He saw that too, because at sixteen years old she wasn't truly a child but she wasn't an adult either, but there was something else about her. There was a strength that she possessed that they didn't; a blunt truth about her unlike those of her coven.

Kol shifted slightly in his chair but nothing on his face changed despite the battle going on in his mind. He wouldn't deny that he hadn't thought about handing her over, and there were ways that he could ensure he benefited from their promises even if they tried to back out. He wasn't just known in the supernatural world for his fascination with witches; when he was active and not in a coffin, people spoke his name with a fear to rival Klaus.

And yet, beyond all that, there was the striking similarity between the young witch and the human Kol had been once; held back by someone with authority when they both desired nothing more than freedom that they'd never truly had.

* * *

_Niklaus had left him alone in the forest at least a half hour before and Kol found himself sitting at the base of one of the trees, his bow and quiver in the grass a meter or so away from him. He was reaching his hands around the ground in front of him, touching leaves that had long since fell and shriveled up, giving them new life with his magic. It wasn't something that his mother had taught him to do, rather something that he'd learned on his own, and he kind of enjoyed it._

_There was something tantalizing about having control over life and death, even if it was just a plant's. He'd realized that he could take away what he gave to them as well, return something to nothing, and Kol would never admit it to anyone else but he liked the control that he had over death._

_"__Kol? What are you doing?" A feminine voice called out and he turned around to see Rebekah running towards him. _

_"__Hunting." He replied, looking at the weapons in front of him._

_"__That doesn't look like hunting." She replied, glaring down at him and Kol rolled his eyes up at her._

_"__Are you here to tell me off?" He asked, not at all concerned. Rebekah may have been a lot of things, but he knew that she would never go running off to Mikael and tell him that he'd been lounging around in the woods rather than shooting at things. "What are you doing here?" He asked himself, not waiting for her reply to his original question, which had been laced with sarcasm._

_Rebekah sat down beside him. "Looking for you." She replied, laying down in the grass and turning on her side to look at him. She saw the scattered leaves around him and for someone not versed in witchcraft, they wouldn't blink at it, but Rebekah smiled because she knew what he'd been doing._

_Kol returned that smile and reached out to a fresh patch of grass, hovering his hands over the ground and closing his eyes in focus. His little sister watched as a sprout burst from the ground, growing and growing until a bud finally appeared and then a beautiful white flower followed. Kol opened his eyes and picked the flower from the stalk, handing it to his sister. "For you."_

_She smiled brightly, placing the flower in her hair. "Thank you."_

_Kol leaned back into the tree, watching as a determined expression crossed his sister's face and she placed her own hands over the ground, closing her eyes and attempting to replicate what Kol had done. When nothing happened after a minute, she opened her eyes and frowned in annoyance. "Why isn't it working?" She hissed, looking incredibly irate despite how sweet her mood had been only a moment ago._

_Kol laughed. "It's not easy if you have no practice, Rebekah." He said, taking her hands and holding them out again, nodding at her to focus and they both closed their eyes. He used the connection through their skin to guide her magic, not using any of his own power, just prodding her along and showing her what he did. So when another flower –a red one – came from the ground, it was entirely Rebekah's doing._

_"__It's beautiful." She murmured, picking the second flower and placing it in her hair as well, looking quite peculiar with both the flowers on opposite sides. Kol couldn't help but burst out laughing, earning a fierce glare from Rebekah._

_"__You know, I'm surprised that you're out in the woods, Rebekah, and not chasing after that boy. What was his name?" Kol frowned as he tried to recall his sister's newest suitor, some young man that had come to live in the village with his family recently. _

_"__His name is Bjorn." She said, seemingly a little annoyed at his memory, though she didn't voice it. "I think you'd actually quite like him."_

_Kol snorted. "I don't need to like him because I'm in infatuated with him."_

_"__Shut up." Rebekah slapped him, and though it was playful, there was still a defensive fire in her eyes. "His family has travelled a lot before coming here. He has so many wonderful stories about the world and I know you like to learn about other places."_

_She was right. Their parents had been born in Europe and when Kol was younger, he used to hang onto his mother's every word as she told him about places that she'd seen outside of their little village. The village was the only part of the world that Kol and his siblings knew, but he was aware that there was so much more._

_"__I've always wanted to travel." Kol muttered, his mind far away for a moment. He wanted to see things outside of the village; to talk to people who've lived completely different lives, to learn their strange languages and sail to their strange lands so that he could immerse themselves in their cultures. But he knew that Mikael would never let any of them leave as long as he was alive. _

_He was too proud of the life they lived to even consider letting any of his children do anything other than follow along with the plans he had for them. Kol knew it was probably only a matter of time before his father started to try and marry them all off for the sake of increasing his own wealth and status in their community. _

_He didn't want that. He wanted to leave, so much so that he'd even entertained the idea of practicing his magic to the point where he could overpower Mikael and that his father would not be able to stop him from jumping on one of their horses and riding off to lands unknown. It was something that featured in his dream quite often too._

_"__Bjorn has a sister too." Rebekah said, interjecting into his thoughts. "Her name is Erika and she has travelled too. Perhaps you might like to talk with her. There's a bonfire tonight in the northern part of the village. Bjorn was actually the one that invited me but Erika will be there too. You should come along Kol." _

_Kol smirked. His sister, while she was a romantic at heart, had completely innocent intentions when she extended that invitation, but Kol couldn't help but think about what kinds of things happened by the fire when there was drinking and women involved. Mikael hated his endeavors around the village and Kol equally hated Mikael's voiced plans of marrying him to some girl of his choosing, but that didn't change the fact that he enjoyed having fun when someone new was in town._

_"__I think I will join you tonight." Kol replied, still smiling. He stood up and grabbed his bow and quiver off the ground. "Though if I actually want to go, I'll have to bring something back home or father will force me to hunt in the dark instead. I'd much prefer the warmth of the fire."_


	6. give me all of that ultraviolence

Chapter 6: Give Me All of that Ultraviolence

_This is ultraviolence  
Ultraviolence  
Ultraviolence  
Ultraviolence  
I can hear sirens, sirens  
He hit me and it felt like a kiss  
I can hear violins, violins  
Give me all of that ultraviolence  
__- Ultraviolence, (Lana del Rey)_

* * *

_She was screaming for help, tears flowing down her face as she met her mother's eyes for only a brief moment before the woman that gave birth to her, that loved her every day for the last sixteen years, turned away from her. _

_She could hear the Elder call the names of her friends one by one and she knew that soon it would be her turn._

_She didn't want to die._

_She didn't want to die._

"No! No! No!" Davina cried, thrashing in a tangle of sheets as she woke up, a sheen of sweat covering her body from the intensity of the dream. Her heart was racing and her breathing was heavy and despite that fact that she knew it had only been a dream, there was no relief that came from waking up. It had felt so real, almost exactly like the memories that she had of the actual night.

"It's just a dream. It's just a dream." She whispered, her throat burning a little and she found it hard to breathe, desperate to convince herself that this was true just so that she could have a moment of reprieve. She glanced at the small clock on her dresser, seeing that it was hardly past one am. It was night but there were few sounds out on the streets that she could hear, so she dared to hurry to the window in her room and push it open just a fraction.

The cool air on her face did wonders, but it didn't wash away the eerie feelings that were radiating all over her skin, the magic that was prickling and pinching at her every second of the day.

"It's not just a dream, Davina." A familiar voice said from behind her. Davina shot around, her already messed up hair flying out in another hundred different directions with the speed of the movement. She jumped backwards as she came face to face with Monique. The girl in front of her was as clear as day, from the harvest dress she was wearing right down to the smooth slice through her throat, but she knew it couldn't be real and that she was going insane.

"Go away." She hissed, glaring at the ghost of her best friend. "You're not real."

The reality of hallucinations was something that Davina felt she could actually cope with, as opposed to truly being haunted by a dead witch.

Monique laughed. "I'm as real as you are. That magic in your veins is mine too, Davina, and until it's released back into the Earth, we're all trapped in this state."

Davina blinked as Monique gestured behind her, two other girls appearing in Davina's vision.

Abigail and Cassie.

Unlike Monique, neither of them made an attempt to approach her, but that didn't make Davina feel any better about seeing them, even if they weren't real.

"Please just go," she whispered, feeling helpless against this newest onslaught of attacks from the elders.

Monique's eyes narrowed just a fraction. "You don't really want that, do you?" She questioned, watching Davina carefully, analysing every movement the terrified girl made. "After all, you and I were friends. Best friends."

"You're dead."

"But I can come back and we can be friends again." Monique smiled. "Remember all the fun times that we used to have? Messing around with our magic and helping each other improve. Shopping and just being normal together. We had so much fun, Davina." She paused, another thought crossing her mind. "Don't you miss me?"

Davina nodded, tears prickling in her eyes. "Yes, Monique, I miss you."

Monique looked sad. "I miss you too. I miss you so much, and I miss my mom too. And Aunt Sophie, and the rest of the coven. But we can all be together again Davina, if you let us."

"It's true, Davina." Abigail stepped forward. Her movements were far from menacing, but the close she got to Davina, the more trapped the all-powerful witch felt, like there was no space for her to move. Abigail's blonde hair shifted slightly as she came to a stop, and Davina's eyes widened as she noticed the scarlet blood drenching the tips, though Abigail didn't seem to notice her distress.

Or if she did, she didn't care.

"It's not as scary as you might thing, dying." Almost instinctively, Abigail reached towards her neck. "You're never truly alone because the ancestors are always with you. They speak to us, teach us, and we've learnt more from them then we have from the rest of our coven in years."

"There's so much that they want to teach _you _Davina." Monique interjected, though she seemed to have difficulty keeping her voice as calm as Abigail's.

Davina wasn't buying it though.

"No, I don't believe you!" She cried, flinching away from them and hurrying to the other side of the room, leaning up against her bed. "The ancestors want me to die and they're not going to let me come back."

She knew how angry they were with her and she also knew a lot about her coven's history. The ancestors liked to punish those who did wrong and they wouldn't just let her come back to life, even if that was an option. She didn't truly believe that the dead could be raised by anything other than vampire blood.

Dejection flickered across Abigail's face but Davina was too distraught to notice, though she did notice a Cassie slowly walked towards her. The brown haired girl stepped right up to Davina and softly grasped her hands. Davina gasped a little and looked up in shock, terrified that she could actually feel Cassie's hands in her own, but there wasn't any time to object.

"The ancestors aren't angry at you, Davina." Cassie whispered softly, looking right into Davina's eyes, radiating nothing but patience in her words. "They're angry at those who are using you for their own gain, the vampires. They want you to return to them so that they can set things right, so that your powers won't be abused anymore." Cassie smiled a little, looking wistful as she continued. "Your death and rebirth will give you a strength that you can't achieve in your current state, and you'll become a better person for all of it."

Davina didn't pull her eyes away from Cassie, and wasn't able to deny that she was somewhat entranced by the girl's words. Cassie had always had a way of talking people around to her side, while still being a sweet and kind girl, but the mention of dying was enough to snap Davina out of whatever little haze she'd been in.

"No. I'm not dying." She pulled are hands away from Cassie who did, to her credit, take a step back, but she wasn't and had never been the main threat in the room.

"You're a selfish brat, Davina." Monique hissed, lunging across the room and gripping into Davina's arm with her nails, drawing blood and causing a biting pain despite Davina's constant insistence that this wasn't real. "You'd let us all die so that you can keep our power and run with the vampires?" Her words her dark and she continued to scrape her fingers against Davina's skin, and droplets of blood rolled down her arm and onto the ground.

"Leave. Me. Alone!" Davina cried. The attic began to shake and she raised a hand, the pain giving her the rage she needed to push them off to oblivion. All three of the girl's disappeared, leaving her alone once more. The attic slowly stopped shaking and her arm fell to her side.

Her heart was racing and her breathing a little out of control, but the relief from the mental block she'd managed to put up in her mind was astounding. She fell back onto her mattress, reaching up to wipe the unshed tears out of her eyes, checking her arm in the process. There was no wound, no blood that had been drawn by Monique in reality, leaving her questioning if it was all real or not.

Despite no marks, the skin on her arm was slightly irritated, and she scratched idly at it without really noticing what she was doing.

* * *

Sophie Deveraux had just closed up the restaurant, but there was still work to be done with the cleaning. The bartender had gone home early, so it was only her, but there was an abundance of dishes to be done and tables to be wiped down.

She had no idea where Jane-Anne was, not having heard from her sister all day, and sighed angrily at the mess she'd just started on.

"Agitated are we?" A slightly too friends voice quipped and the witch turned around to find Kol Mikaelson sitting inside, at the most pristine corner of the place with his feet up on the table as he swung back and forth on his chair.

"I have to clean that now, you know." Sophie spat.

"I don't care." The Original replied, completely ignorant of the idea of manners. "I have questions and I want answers, so that's all that really matters now. You can't do magic, so I would suggest you answer or I'll just snap your neck."

She didn't doubt that, and while Sophie didn't want to be forthcoming about a lot of things, this vampire was a potential ally who had an 'in' with Marcel. She'd tried to make contact with the vampire herself, but he knew of her predicament and hadn't returned any of her calls since the night of the Harvest.

"What do you want to know?"

"I want to know why you're going along with the Harvest, Sophie Deveraux." He said, little tact in his words as he glared at her, eyes narrowed.

"Because, I don't want the witches to lose their power, otherwise we'll be subjected to Marcel's-"

Kol stood up, shooting across the room and suddenly appearing right in front of her face. Sophie wasn't a stranger to vampires, but she didn't like being near them when they were as unpredictable as Kol Mikaelson was. Her coven told stories about him, and he was living up to what she knew.

"That's not the right answer, Sophie." Kol said, towering over the young witch and glowering down at her, caring little for the lack of personal space between them. "I can hear your heartbeat and you were lying. You were lying when I first spoke to you as well." He paused, edging even closer towards her, forcing her to take a step back that pushed her towards a corner. "Tell me the truth. Why are you going along with the Harvest?"

Sophie's eyes flicked down to the ground, unwilling to look at him. She didn't need to wear vervain to stop herself from being compelled, her magic protecting her from that, but it was hard to meet his eyes when they were filled with such darkness.

"Because it's the only way to get my niece, Monique, back." She whispered.

Kol took a step back. "What?"

She looked up, forcing herself to meet his eyes. "Monique was one of the girls killed in the sacrifice, and the only way to get them all back is to complete it. If... if Davina doesn't die, all the other girls will stay dead and Monique will be gone for good, and it'll all be my fault because I tried to stop it."

"You didn't believe in it?" He questioned, digging deeper to the desperation that he'd latched onto.

Sophie shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes. "No. But Monique's mother, my sister, did. And now her daughter is dead and I've done that to her, and to Monique. I don't think I'll be able to live with myself if I don't get her back." She had no idea why this was all spilling out, but it was, and Kol was taking all of it in carefully, digesting every little bit of information and from what he gathered, the witch wasn't even truly certain that the ritual would work now, even though she was trying to complete it, but she was filled with hope.

Sophie suddenly moved forward, grabbing onto Kol's arm, her eyes wide. "Why are you asking me this? Are you planning to help us?" Her voice was strangled and the tears that had been brimming finally ran down her cheeks. He pulled his arm away from her, taking a quick step back from the sobbing witch, a little unsure of what to make of that.

"I choose my battles wisely, Sophie Deveraux, and I like to get my information from more than once source before I make up my mind." Kol said, the glare back on his face after the moment of shock from Sophie's distress, not expecting her to take as much as she did from his words.

"Does that mean you've spoken to Davina?" She said suddenly and he didn't let his face changed.

"I've killed a lot of people in my time," he said, "but even I'm not one to send children to the slaughter without a good reason."

He turned away from her then, having got what he wanted from her. Before he left though, Kol strode over to the bar and leaned across to the stacks of alcohol behind the counter, grabbing one of the more expensive bottles of bourbon. He hadn't allied with the witch, but he knew she wasn't stupid enough to risk it by arguing over a bottle, and he gained some amusement from the horrified look on her face as he left with it in his hands.

* * *

Kol was surprised when he hovered around the edge of Davina's room to find that there was no longer any boundary spell there against him. Every time he'd visited her before that, he'd had to wait for her invitation to enter.

A smile appeared on his face as he crossed without that invitation, because it had already been permanently extended.

He was quite as he moved through her room. She was fast asleep on the top of the covers of her bed, and he wondered how she ended up passing out in that manner.

Careful so he didn't wake her, he shifted her body under the blankets and pulled them up around her. The cold didn't bother him as a vampire, but that didn't mean he had no concept of temperature, and it was quite cool. With all those doll dresses that Marcel had bought her, he couldn't imagine it being very comfortable at the present time of night.

When she was warmly tucked in, Kol sat down on the bed beside her and pushed the hair out of her face so that he could see her clearly. She looked quite peaceful where she was, fast asleep, and it was nice to see her that way. In the short time that he'd known her, he'd never seen peace on her face. Determination, anger and sadness, but not such a peaceful state and he was glad that she'd been able to escape it all, even if only for a few moments.

But he still didn't really have a concept of what she was escaping, and that was what he wanted to understand.

He wasn't sure if she would show him what he wanted if he asked, and Kol wasn't exactly accustomed to asking for things, so he didn't really think twice about placing his hand gently on her forehead and starting to dig through her mind, searching back months for the darkest parts of her life.

_"Our magic fades as our ties to our ancestors weaken over time. We beseech them, accept this offering as a sign of our faith."_

_"No! Stop! Bastiana, stop! You have to stop, Bastiana, please don't do this!"_

_"To be born, you must sacrifice. Do you have faith?"_

_"No, no!"_

_"What is wrong with you!?"_

_"Monique, run away! Run away!" _

_"Marcel." _

_"I got you." _

_"Marcel, I wanna make them pay."_

Kol dropped his hand from her forehead, trying to be completely emotionless about what he'd just seen. Some part of him didn't want to believe that he cared about what happened to this girl, he wasn't the caring type in general, but there was another part of him that felt rage towards the witches for this, simply because a girl like Davina didn't deserve to have their life taken away for something so selfish.

And yet, he was the selfish type too.

Kol shifted uncomfortably, a little restless at the fact that he hadn't gotten himself into a position where he cared if someone lived or died. He hadn't cared for a long time because the first few months of being a vampire had completely destroyed the majority of his humanity, and the small fraction that he clung onto was hidden deep down.

And he wanted to ignore it.

Breaking through his thoughts, his phone started to vibrate in his jacket pocket. Davina stirred a little at the brief sound and he flashed out of the room at vampire speed, answering the phone when he was down in the church.

"Bekah?" He said when he saw the number.

"Kol!" His sister's voice was strangled. "You need to come back to Mystic Falls, now. Elijah's coming too."

"Rebekah? What happened?" His voice was low, reaching a dangerous level as he thought of what Rebekah had told him a few days ago, about the commotion in that small, wretched town.

"It's Nik. He was trying to help take down the vampire that mother created, but he can't be killed by our weapons. The only way to kill him is to kill Elena, because mother linked their lives together, so Klaus made off with her and they all turned on him and used a spell to desiccate him."

"What?" Kol growled.

"Elijah thinks he can negotiate, to get Klaus' body, and then he says we have to run again."

Mikael's one goal had always been to kill Niklaus, and Kol had spent a lot of time over the centuries apart from his siblings, but this vampire would seek them all out with the stake that could destroy them. One after another, until the whole of the vampire race was dead.

He didn't want to have to run.

"And why can't we just kill the doppelganger?" Kol muttered. While he and Jeremy had never been real friends, Kol had been good at pretending, and Jeremy had spent a lot of time complaining about his sister when he was states away from her. Kol's brief confrontation with her had basically resulted in two desires. The first was to stake himself with his own bat just so that he didn't have to look at her face or listen to her annoying voice, and the second was to rip her head off, but that hadn't been an option at the time. "Nik obviously doesn't care if she lives or dies now."

It seemed obvious to him. And if they needed a volunteer out of the three of them, he was more than happy to travel to Mystic Falls and disembowel the doppel-banger.

"Elijah wants to try it his way first. He has some... attachment to her."

Kol wanted to vomit. Of the three that he'd met, Katerina Petrova was the only one with any personality, and yet Elijah was somehow in lust with this newest one as well. "He's pathetic." He spat.

"I'm not going to argue that, but please, Kol, just get here. We need to leave as soon as possible and if we're all together we can work out a plan."

He didn't like it, but he wasn't about to let his brother sit there at the mercy of the Mystic Falls Gang while a crazed vampire was on the loose with a White Oak Stake. And someone had to kill Elena when Elijah's plan inevitably failed.

"I'll be there in a few hours, sister."

Kol really wanted to see what she looked like without a head... or arms.


	7. it's your messed up family tree

**Hi everyone! I would just like to say thank you to all of your lovely reviews. I've been replying to them all individually, but would just like to thank you here as well, because you've all be so lovely. To the anon who asked if this fic will follow the story line, yes it will. The events from Season 3 and 4 of TVD that Kol is involved in will stay the same, but he will have his own stories in New Orleans, and it will continue into The Originals as well, though this fic will eventually diverge from the Season 1 story, and it won't take that long to do it. **

**Again, thank you everyone, and I hope you enjoy this chapter too. We'll be heading back to NOLA in the next one!**

* * *

Chapter 7: It's Your Messed Up Family Tree

_You didn't ask for this_  
_Nobody ever would_  
_Caught in the middle of this dysfunction_  
_It's your sad reality_  
_It's your messed up family tree_  
_And all your left with all these questions_  
_- Family Tree (Matthew West)_

* * *

_Kol cared little about what state Klaus was in. He'd be happy to let his brother rot like that for at least as long as he'd been daggered cumulatively over his life, but there was a problem with the hunter chasing him. He hadn't thought much about the bloodlines, even when Finn had died, and certainly not after he'd killed Mary, but the fact remained that if Klaus died, Marcel and the vampires of New Orleans would die, leaving Davina unprotected._

_He didn't tell Marcel the details, simply that he was leaving for a few days and to get Davina to keep practicing her magic, but there was a part of him that wanted to keep her close by in case something did happen to his brother, to make sure she would be protected, but he also didn't want to scare her._

_And he wasn't sure what was going to happen in Mystic Falls, and decided that she shouldn't be near that._

_Instead, he compelled up a new phone and put his number into it, writing her a hasty note to go with it. Again, he went into little detail, just telling her that he had to go deal with a 'family matter', to keep practicing (specifically to try boiling the water in the bottle he'd left in her room), to call if she needed him for anything, and lastly to keep the phone safe. He didn't trust Marcel not to take it away and get angry about it, but he wanted to guarantee a method of getting into contact with her._

_He'd slipped the phone and note under her pillow, quick enough that it wouldn't wake her, but he knew that she'd noticed the altered shape of her pillow when she woke._

* * *

It didn't take him long to arrive in Mystic Falls, in fact he'd arrived the same time as Elijah. He'd easily compelled up a private plane to take him to Virginia, and the flight had been next to nothing.

"You're telling me that you're simply going to ask for him back?" Kol questioned, glaring at his brother. There was no time to be wasted, but he was pretty sure the only reason Elijah was meeting with him now - in the bar of some dingy hotel just outside of town - was to ensure that Kol didn't do anything to mess up his plan.

Kol's plan was to just burn the house and drive them out so he could kill the doppelganger, but Elijah still stressed that he wanted to negotiate, like Rebekah had said that he wanted to.

"My relationship with those in Mystic Falls isn't as... stressed as yours is. I believe that if we simply ask for our brother and offer to protect Elena by waiting out her life, that we will be able to come to very smooth agreement."

Elijah. Always the optimist.

"And then you expect us to run and hide?" Kol questioned. Elijah nodded, though he'd been making an effort to gloss over the terminology up until that point. Kol didn't want to agree. He knew that if Alaric was chasing them, that he couldn't return to New Orleans until Elena died, but who knew how long that would take?

Considering that he'd just returned to the city, he didn't want to leave it so quickly, nor did he want to return there with an entourage of volatile siblings.

"I don't want to." He sounded like a pouting child, but he wasn't going to elaborate.

Elijah sighed. "You _will _agree to this Kol, even if I have to resort to unlikable methods to do so."

Kol rolled his eyes at Elijah's dagger threat, but he also knew that it was serious, not that he agreed with any of it. "Fine. I won't touch the doppelganger, if they accept your deal. If they don't, then she's free game."

"Oh you won't have to worry about that." Elijah said. "Despite what respect I have for Elena, if they refuse to accept, then I'll be the one to kill her and we'll acquire Niklaus through other means."

Elijah stood for their table and made to turn away, but Kol was quick to get to his feet as well, grabbing Elijah's arm in a last attempt to get his way. "Do you really care that much for Elena, Elijah?"

Elijah turned back around, his face impassive. "Are you really that determined to kill an innocent girl, Kol?"

Kol's eyes narrowed. "On the contrary, I couldn't care less about her either way, but the only way to protect those in his bloodline - and ours - would be for her to die." He added the 'ours' part to mask his true intentions, getting to flippant with giving Elijah information, but it really was the best solution to their problems.

Elijah watched him, curious. "Since when do you care so much about Niklaus' bloodline."

"I know someone under the protection of someone linked to that bloodline." Kol said, careful about how much information he gave, though there really wasn't anything he was saying that could tip Elijah off to this being Marcel. "And if you must know, brother, she's an innocent girl who would be thrown to the wolves if this vampire were to die." There. What did it matter if Elijah knew he cared for some girl.

"I'm not going to let you mess this up Kol. You'll stay here." Elijah said after a pause, not saying anything else before departing abruptly.

* * *

"All we need is to take that stake away from him. Once it's been disarmed, the weapon's in my possession, my family will scatter to the ends of the Earth and Alaric will follow us." Kol could hear Elijah's words from outside the house. He didn't think his older brother knew that he'd followed him there, but Kol had already decided that he would be there in case things didn't go Elijah's way.

His brother had spent a thousand years making romantic notions towards the doppelgangers, even if they had no redeeming qualities, and he wasn't sure that Elijah would actually kill her if it came to that.

In which case, he was more than happy to do it himself.

"And you'll just run?" Stefan Salvatore asked, not sounding like he really believed it.

_No, we won't just run,_ Kol thought.

"We've done it before. Klaus and Rebekah spent the better part of a thousand years evading my father. What's another half century while Elena is able to live out the rest of her natural life?"

Sure, half a century wasn't much for an Original, but still, a lot could change in those years and all it took was for this hunter to get close to of one of them, and they would be going through all of this again.

"We've finally stopped him, Elijah. After everything that he's done to us, I can't just let you bring him back." Kol clenched his fist at the sound of Elena's voice.

He knew that Klaus had done some terrible things to them, and he himself was contemplating her death at that very moment, but was angered him the most was the sense of entitlement in her voice, this expectation that because Klaus had upset meant that she had the right to punish him for his actions.

It was obvious to him then that she really didn't understand the values of family, even though she had a brother. She was selfish and absorbed in her own little world, but that didn't mean she had the right to punish his brother.

That was for Kol, Rebekah and Elijah to do.

"I give you my word, Elena. I will not revive Klaus within yours nor even within your children's lifetimes. Perhaps that will finally teach him some manners."

He did agree with that. Should Elijah get Klaus back, there was no way that Kol would be the one to revive him, and he knew Rebekah wouldn't either. He'd daggered all of them multiple times over the years, but none of them had ever been able to extract the same kind of vengeance back on him. They had always been at his mercy until now.

The Quarterback interjected. "Why should she trust you? All you've done is screw her over."

"And for that, I am deeply ashamed. But know this, she could have been dead the instant I walked through that door tonight, so Elena, I leave it to you to make the decision whether to trust me or not." Kol rolled his eyes. Of course his brother left it to Elena to decide. He really had joined the 'Elena Gilbert Fan Club'.

_"Not! Hello, did that concussion give you brain damage?! His lunatic siblings will kill you the first chance they get!"_

Kol chuckled softly to himself.

It was the first time that Damon Salvatore had been right. On two accounts there. Kol was both a lunatic, self-proclaimed at times, and he would kill Elena in the first chance that he got.

"Rebekah and Kol will honor the terms. If you return Klaus' body to us, Elena will come to no harm." Elijah said, disregarding the truth he knew was in Damon's words. "Do we have a deal?"

_"No! No, no, no, no. Did I mention NO?"_ Damon objected again, through a phone from what Kol could hear.

"Elena, it's up to you." Stefan said.

_"Oh, come on!"_

It was all so melodramatic, like one of those stupid TV dramas that seemed to be everywhere in the current century.

"Why do you want Klaus' body?" Elena questioned and Kol hissed softly through his teeth. He was certain more than ever that this girl truly didn't know how to value family.

"He's my brother. We remain together."

"We have a deal." Elena concluded, though not before sighing, like this choice was really that taxing to her.

* * *

"Rebekah will be going to retrieve Klaus." Elijah said, talking like Kol didn't know the details of what was going to happen. When the stupid doppelganger had accepted the deal, he'd headed back to the hotel they'd met in before, where Elijah expected him to be. His brother had showed up minutes after that. "They've given her the location and when she has him, she'll make her way upstate. Once she's gotten him to a safer location and the hunter has started to follow, we'll make our way there too."

"And what? We're just supposed to wait?"

"Yes, Kol, we're going to wait." Elijah replied. "Or more correctly, you're going to wait here, while I stay close to Elena, just to make sure things stay in our favour."

"Then why are you still here Elijah?" Kol muttered, his words a slight hiss, though he knew the answer, because his brother was doing exactly the same thing that he had been before. Making sure that Kol didn't screw things up.

* * *

"Damon! Damon, where are you?" Rebekah was on a short amount of borrowed time with this exchange, so she was annoyed when Damon wasn't waiting in plain sight for her. She wanted nothing more than to find her brother and get out of there so that she could meet up with Kol and Elijah, though like Kol, she was still hoping that the opportunity to kill Elena would arise.

"Damon, this isn't funny." She called out as she walked through the line of storage units, knowing only one of them contained Klaus' body and that it would be useless to start checking all of them. She was about to call out again when a blur grabbed her from behind, covering her mouth before she could make a sound.

Fear pulsed through her. For a second, she wondered if this was some kind of trap set up by Damon to get her killed by Alaric, if they hated her that much that they would do that, but when she finally got good look in his eyes, she knew that he was just as scared as he was, and that this wasn't some kind of trap. She briefly remembered the details of the plan to get the White Oak Stake from Alaric, but he was supposed to go after Stefan, Caroline and Elijah, not Damon.

Apparently Alaric had already found a way to track them, and it made her less than confident about half a century evading him,

"Rebekah. Shhhh." Damon whispered, slowly releasing her and gesturing to the storage unit closest to them, 1020. Understanding, she helped him open the door without making sound and neither of them wasted anytime starting to move Klaus' casket, and she thanked whatever God there was that Damon wasn't stupid as to object about handing him over now.

They almost reached the car before Alaric appeared in front of them, grabbing her and slamming her head into her car, before tossing her out of the way like she was nothing more than a doll. Rebekah struggled to get up as Damon and Alaric briefly fought and the vampire hunter turned his attention to the casket, and the desiccated Hybrid inside.

"No!" Rebekah cried.

"No, don't!" Damon objected in the same moment as Alaric raised the stake.

"No! No! No!"

Everything moved in slow motion as she saw the stake pierce her brother's heart. She heard Klaus gasp and tried to run, but Damon was quick to restrain her, so she resorted to screaming out in agony, crying as she saw the flames appear in the casket.

All she could do was cry, even when Alaric turned towards her.

"Next." His one word was full of whatever darkness her mother had given him.

"Rebekah, run. Run!"

* * *

"He's gone, Elijah." Rebekah whispered as she made her way towards her brother, tears prominent on her beautiful face. She watched as Elijah's face changed, sorrow etched into every crease, and hurried towards him, throwing her arms around him and letting him do the same.

"Tyler Lockwood is dead, but the rest survived. You said that Niklaus turned their bloodline." Elijah told her as he pulled away, implication in his words, but he didn't dare to suggest what their longevity might imply.

"I thought he did." Rebekah said, in fact, she was certain. But then again, how could one be certain of anything when they'd lived so long?  
Elijah looked confused. "It wasn't me, it wasn't Kol."

"It wasn't me, Elijah." Rebekah said, insisted. "It was Niklaus, I'm sure of it." She remembered Mary, and she knew what story Kol had fabricated about the Salvatore's vampire bloodline, but the truth was that neither she, nor Kol even gave Mary more than a few rare moments of their time. And she knew her brother, her noble Elijah, who could probably remember everyone he'd ever personally turned because there was truly so few of them.

It had to be Klaus.

"Then how are they still alive?" He questioned, though he still didn't dare to speak the possibilities his words implied.

* * *

"Bekah?" Kol had received a message from his sister to meet her near the Wickery Bridge and he was waiting. He'd been pretty much useless the whole time and Rebekah had refused to tell him where Klaus was being held, so he'd been unable to help her retrieve his body. She'd insisted that she and Elijah were the only ones that they might even remotely trust to take Klaus, and that Damon would attack at the first sight of Kol.

Which left him doing nothing but waiting until he'd received the text, which came minutes after a phone call from Elijah, confirming their brother's death.

"Kol." Rebekah appeared beside him, looking out onto the bridge.

"He's really gone?" He asked, not looking at her.

"I saw it happen." Rebekah confirmed. "I tried to get to him but Damon made me leave before Alaric could follow me."

He let no emotion show on his face, but the truth was that it hurt. He'd been closer to Klaus but the news hurt just as much as when he'd found out that Finn was dead. There was so many things wrong with their family, but love was not one of them, and Kol truly loved his siblings.

All of them.

But the main problem at hand was Klaus' sire line. Klaus had turned Marcel, and Marcel's bloodline had thrived through out New Orleans. In a few hours, they would start dropping like flies and the witches would notice. After that, it would only take one locator spell to find Davina, and while he didn't doubt that she could take care of herself, she couldn't take on a whole coven of determined witches, most of whom were far more experienced than her.

He had no idea what he'd do with a young witch, but if he slaughtered the coven then she would be safe. Kol supposed he could set her up somewhere to live her life as she chose, and then leave her be, which is more than he could say for most that came into his company.

He would give his sister this moment, but then he would have to go and get her out before they came after her.

He reached out an arm and wrapped it around Rebekah, pulling her against him. She rested her head on his shoulder and he, in turn, leaned his own head on top of hers.

"And he still has the stake?" Kol asked as they stood there against each other.

"Yes." Rebekah whispered, her following words laced with venom. "Elijah wants us to run, like we ran from our father, while Elena lives her human life to a natural end."

Kol snorted. Of course, he already knew of Elijah's deal, but he didn't expect that their brother would enforce it with Klaus gone.

"They're alive too, none of them died." Rebekah added and Kol pulled away to look at his sister.

"What?"

"Kol, are you certain that Nik was the one who turned Mary?" She asked.

"Yes. He told me that it was him when he asked me to kill her." He frowned. "How are they still alive?"

"I have no clue." Rebekah said, darkly. "All I know is that I watched our brother get staked and burn in front of me, and that Elena Gilbert gets to skip off into the sunset with the Salvatore Brothers-Who-Didn't-Die, while we are supposed to run. Elijah's plan was supposed to protect our brother and he's become the first casualty, while they continue to expect us to ensure her longevity."

It was obvious to Kol where this was going, and the ghost of a smile touched his lips.

"He's dead. There is no deal anymore." Kol replied.

"Exactly what I was thinking."

Kill Elena, and save the vampire race. While it could be morally ambiguous on account for their personal hatred of the woman, it was still the right thing to do. All of them knew vampires they wouldn't want to see dead for the sake of one human girl's life. Nik was dead. He didn't even need her anymore.

Rebekah didn't say anything else to Kol, instead pulling her phone out of her pocket and dialing. He didn't know who she was calling until he heard Stefan pick up.

"Hello?"

"You're alive. Congratulations." Rebekah said.

"Rebekah."

"Elijah spoke to Elena. Her and Matt should be arriving back in town any minute."

"Yeah, he told me that. He also said you two would be long gone out of town by now."

"That's the problem." Rebekah didn't even bother hiding her emotions. She was distraught and angry, and it was a deadly combination. "Elijah says we have to run, that the hunter will keep coming after us, but I don't want to run anymore, Stefan. I spent my whole life running."

"What are you talking about?" We had a deal." Stefan hurriedly replied.

"I'm sorry, but Klaus is dead." Rebekah spat. "There is no deal. If my brothers and I are going to survive, we need to get rid of Alaric, and the only way to get rid of Alaric..."

"Rebekah, no." Kol heard the Salvatore say just as his sister hung up. The sound of a car approaching them echoed through the night and both of them turned to see the headlights of the vehicle that hadn't yet turned onto the bridge.

"Right on time." His sister breathed, flashing out onto the bridge as the car approached, her expression not changing even the slightest as it went over.


	8. the land of gods and monsters

Chapter 8 - In the Land of Gods and Monsters

_In the land of Gods and Monsters_  
_I was an Angel_  
_Living in the garden of evil_  
_Screwed up, scared, doing anything that I needed_  
_Shining like a fiery beacon_  
_- Gods and Monsters (Lana del Rey)_

* * *

"So our brother's alive after all?" He wouldn't admit that he was particularly surprised by this news, and he wouldn't admit to his relief either. Klaus had always been adept with schemes and plans in a way that the rest of their siblings had never been able to master.

"The Bennett witch did a spell so that he would body jump if Alaric happened to stake him, so that her friends wouldn't die. Apparently Klaus really did admit to being a part of their sire line, when they were originally working together to confront the hunter." Rebekah said through the phone. Kol was driving back to New Orleans and was well aware that using communication devices while driving was against the law, but he didn't really care.

"Who'd he jump into?" Was Kol's question.

"Tyler Lockwood, one of his Hybrids, but he's back in his own body now." Rebekah's voice sounded strained as she mentioned this.

"What happened with you two?"

"He tried to choose his Hybrids - and the last of Elena's human blood - over me, his sister." If he was able to see his sister in that moment, he would have noticed the tears in her eyes, though her voice was impassive for the most part. "I destroyed the blood and he snapped my neck."

Kol sighed.

They were all volatile, but Klaus and Rebekah really did strive to constantly outdo each other. Part of the reason he'd spent so much time away from his family over the years was because of this nonsense that went on, particularly with the two of them. "At least he can't make anymore of the vile creatures." Kol finally said.

He would sleep better knowing that there were no more Hybrids to be made, because if Klaus ever wanted to track him down again and dagger him, there wouldn't be an army of vampire-werewolves coming after him. It was somewhat of a twisted, sick relief.

"Let him rot with the few he has left." Rebekah spat before clearing her throat. "Where are you going now Kol. Elijah said you already left."

"Don't know, don't care. Europe seems like a good idea." Kol replied, nonchalant, still not wanting his siblings to find out about the time he'd been spending in New Orleans.

"I didn't know you liked shopping in Paris."

"No, sister, that's you." He laughed a little. "I like Paris for very different reasons."

There was a slight pause. "Elijah said you left in a hurry for some girl."

Kol glared at the road in front of him.

"Is that true?"

"No." He spat. "Our brother is the hopeless romantic of this family, not me." His teeth were clenched and he was aware of the fact that he sounded overly defensive, but he continued. "I merely told Elijah that I knew of someone who was under protect from a vampire in Klaus' bloodline, and that she would most likely be killed, should that vampire die and not be able to protect her."

"So you left for a girl."

"No. I left because I didn't want to hang around in a silly town where the people who let my brother die were living and breathing." Kol said, and that part was actually true, but of course, his darling sister completely disregarded the logic of his response.

"What's her name?" Rebekah sounded gleeful.

Kol hung up on her.

* * *

It had been just over twenty four hours that he'd been gone, hardly anytime at all. The sun was a few short hours away from rising when he made it back to the French Quarter. Kol could only assume that nothing had gone wrong while he was gone, because neither Davina nor Marcel had made any attempt to contact him, but it was eerily obvious that things could have gone very different, had Klaus actually died.

He'd had the thought in the back of him mind when it became apparent that his brother's sire line had survived his death, but he hadn't believed that Klaus was still alive until Rebekah had confirmed it.

Regardless, he was just glad that things didn't go the way that they could have, and that everything was right for the most part.

He made his way to the church as soon as he got back into town, caring little for the time. Whatever little conscious Kol had left had been nagging at him to check on her the whole time he was driving back to Louisiana.

Kol hadn't actually been expecting Davina to be awake, but she was sitting up in her bed reading a book that looked like she'd leafed through it a hundred times. It was one of those silly novels for teenagers. Granted, they were aimed at her age group, but Kol couldn't help but cringe at seeing her read one.

When he'd been undaggered, Rebekah had told him about the status of vampires in the current century and Kol was sicked to learn of 'Twilight' and vampires that sparkled and didn't eat people. Thankfully, Davina wasn't reading that.

"Kol?" She looked up from the novel when she heard him walk in, smiling when she saw who it was. Davina put the novel on her bedside table and pushed the covers off her, standing up. "You're back. I was wondering how long you would be gone."

"Why, Darling? Did you miss me?" He smirked as he stopped in front of her.

Davina rolled her eyes. "I never said that. You're just the only person apart from Marcel that I get to talk to. Perhaps I would miss the things you tell me about, but I never said I missed you."

Kol scoffed. "Don't lie." He said before moving to hand her what he'd brought back from Virginia for her.

"What are these?"

"Those-" he pointed to one of the two bags, "-are some books that I took from my brother's library. Elijah has always had a thing for period literature." Kol didn't tell her that he thought she might enjoy them. He wasn't that comfortable with sharing sentiment yet, and just ended up continuing. "And this is something I took from my mother's spell book. It's an old spell but I thought that you might find it useful. Did you practice boiling the water?"

Davina nodded, taking the spell and looking over it.

"Good." Kol affirmed. "That will help you with this one. My mother, while a perfectly charming woman at times, happened to be quite the sadist. That spell will show you how to boil someone from the inside by raising the temperature of their blood. Won't be as easy as water, but it'll be useful once you learn how to do it because human's can't survive if you get it right."

And it would be extremely uncomfortable for any other supernatural species despite their healing powers.

Davina emitted a soft laugh, the smile on her face slightly manic as he said this and he wondered which of her coven she was planning on using it on. He couldn't help but smile at that as well, until he remembered the fact that the witches were expecting some kind of help from him in planning her demise.

"How the hell am I going to practice that?" She questioned, looking at him carefully.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Kol said, leaving it at that. Having his blood boiled, while unpleasant, wouldn't kill him, and it had been something that had happened to him before, so he wasn't exactly unfamiliar with it.

"How noble." Davina smirked, placing the spell away in a draw and the books on the table.

"I'm not noble, darling." He told her. "If you want to be in the company of someone noble, I would suggest my brother, Elijah."

She raised an eyebrow. "The one you stole these from?"

"Yes." Kol didn't give her anymore time to comment on Elijah. "We'll start with that spell tomorrow."

He was about to turn around the leave when he caught sight of one of her arms, and grabbed hold of it, lifting it up. "What's this?" The flesh was covered in scratches, like she'd been unable to leave it alone.

Davina frowned and pulled her arm away from him. "It's nothing." She muttered, averting her eyes. "Just itchy, that's all. You don't need to worry about it."

Kol eyed her arm for another moment before nodding. If she hadn't added the bit about him needing not to worry, he might have believed her, but her heart hammered when he'd mentioned it and it seemed obvious to him that it wasn't nothing, but a part of him didn't really want to press for details, so he didn't.

"Get some sleep, Davina. I'll come later in the day so that we can work on the spell."

Davina nodded and watched as he left, climbing back into her bed when she was alone. The part of her arm where the ghost-Monique had clawed at her, well, it had been irritated ever since then and she couldn't leave it alone. She hadn't seen the ghosts since then, but she'd felt their presence, and knew that it was just more of the continued psychological torture that the ancestors would continue to inflict on her.

Former witch or not, she didn't think a vampire could help her with that.

* * *

After leaving Davina, Kol paid a visit to Marcel to let him know that he was back in the city, before making his way back home. Thoughts of the witches had been occupying his mind, knowing that he was going to have to do something about that soon, that didn't include allying with them.

He figured if he took too long that they would turn against him, but he couldn't believe they would trust him in the first place. Perhaps they were just so confused but determined that they didn't care who they got to do their dirty work. Having to work without magic for the first time in their lives was probably leaving them making some rash decisions in their attempts to gain back power.

But it didn't really matter in the end, because he wasn't going to let them kill Davina.

Kol pulled into his place on the outskirts of the city, glad that he hadn't had a car stored there so that there was place to park the one that he'd driven back from Virginia, which he'd taken from Klaus' mansion, along with a few of the things that he'd left there last time, though he didn't bother taking them out of the car just yet.

He was much more interested in the blood stored in the house, and then sleeping off the last thirty-six or so hours that he'd spent awake, so he made his way straight to the door.

As soon as Kol walked through it, he stopped. To a human's eye and ears, nothing would be out of place, but his senses went far beyond theirs, and it became immediately evident that there was someone in the house.

And they were waiting for him. He heard them laugh softly when he opened the door.

Back when he'd first lived in New Orleans and the home had been a sanctuary for him when he wanted to escape his siblings, he'd kept a human's name on the contracts for the sake of privacy but in the century that he'd been daggered he hadn't kept the name of the house updated, which meant that any vampire could walk in as they pleased.

After a moment of deliberation, he realized that it wasn't just any vampire that was there. A smirk crossed his face as he stalked through the house, flashing towards the upstairs bedroom where the distinct scent was coming from, and it was a scent that he remembered quite clearly despite the years.

The door was ajar and he slowly pushed it open, knowing what he was about to find.

"You know, the last day and a half has been pretty up and down." The woman said. Her hands were folded over her chest and brown hair spilled over the pillow she rested her head on, looking like she owned the place. "First, Klaus was supposedly incapacitated and then all of a sudden I find out that he's been staked by some crazy drunk, slash teacher, slash vampire hunter turned evil vampire, and that he's dead. But then, the fact that I failed to die means that your psycho older brother is still living and I want to know why."

"You never waste your time getting to the point, Katerina." Kol laughed as he leaned against the wall, mimicking her stance and crossing his own arms as he took her in. "You know... I had the terrible misfortune of meeting your doppelgänger, with her arms wrapped up with both of those Salvatore brothers."

"Urgh." Katerina rolled her eyes at the mention of Elena Gilbert. "That girl has absolutely no redeeming qualities about her. I resent the fact that she's still breathing, but, with everyone being wrapped up in protecting her, I'd have the whole of Mystic Falls chasing me if I so much as tried to rip out her heart or snap her neck." Despite her admittance that she couldn't really get near Elena, Katerina was still obviously wrapped up in the thoughts of her death and Kol could relate to that. Nothing about Elena had struck him as worthwhile during the short time that he'd spent in Mystic Falls.

"I have to say, having met her, you're much prettier." Kol teased, meeting her eyes. A proud little smile crossed Katerina's face and she sat up on the bed, flicking her hair over her shoulder. "Vampirism suits you more than it does her." Rebekah had informed him of Elena's transition, and he'd raised an eyebrow at the fact that his sister helped complete it, but it didn't really matter in the end. Killing her would be more fun if he ever crossed paths with Vampire-Elena.

Katerina's eyes widened a little, telling Kol that she hadn't know about Elena being a vampire, but she chose not to comment on it, instead latching onto Kol's first sentence of the two.

"I don't need you to tell me that, Kol." Katerina's voice was dismissive but he knew that she liked the compliments. She pulled herself up off the bed and made her way towards him, her heels clinking on the polished wood and probably scratching it up, but Kol didn't care. Floors were capable of being replaced. "Now, what I do need for you to tell me is how Klaus is still alive."

Of course.

"He pulled a body switch, thanks to the Bennett witch, but according to my darling sister, he's back in his own form and already in a bad mood." Kol replied, not caring too much about divulging all of that to Katerina. The only reason that she'd bothered to pay him a visit was because she knew that he would explain things to her. Kol had given up helping Klaus catch Katerina centuries ago, in fact he'd never bothered to try much.

The brunette took in the information, still approaching him in that slow, deliberate way of hers. She didn't stop until she was right up against him, her lips inches away from his.

"You know, I've missed you since you've been in the coffin. I was quite pleased to find out that Elijah had undaggered you." She whispered, her breath softly blowing over his face. She smelt good, just like he remembered from the past centuries, and she was just as invested as he remembered as well.

"You're pleased because I'm the only one of us who probably wouldn't rip you to shreds on sight." He whispered back, bringing a hand around to the small of her back, drawing her even closer. "And you can't negotiate your freedom from my brother if you're dead."

Katerina smirked, bringing her own hand up to stroke his face. "Oh Kol, that's not the only reason. You and I used to have a lot of fun back in the day." Every word was dripping in seduction and sex, and had Kol actually been thinking with a clear mind, he might have had a chance at turning her down, but his thoughts were clouded. He'd been quite busy since he'd been undaggered but he hadn't actually been with anyone while he'd been awake and the lust that came with that was all he could focus on.

A growl hitched in his throat and he pulled Katerina against him, crushing his lips against hers without any concern about being delicate, but he knew that she liked it that way. Her fingers shot up to tangle in his hair as he slipped his hands around her legs and hoisted her up against him, letting Katerina wrap herself around his waist, flinging them around so that he was pushing her against the wall at the same time. She moaned at the pressure against her, breathing heavily as she continued to push her soft lips against his.

He had truly missed this. Even if Katerina had an agenda, which she always did, he never failed to get something out of it too when she came calling.

She clawed at the nape of his neck and nipped at his lips, drawing blood in both places and Kol had lost all thought of self-control by that point.

He flashed across the room and pushed the brunette down on the bed. His fangs forced their way out and he tore into her thigh, losing himself in the taste of her blood.

* * *

**Thank you again for the lovely reviews everyone! I've planned out this story basically in three parts so far; Part 1 is the Kol chapter, Part 2 is Davina's and Part 3 is Kolvina. So before anyone asks, ****yes, this is a Kolvina story but an actual relationship/feelings towards them is going to take time to develop, and Katherine is going to be quite important for the first part. There's going to be a lot more Kolvina coming up though, now that Kol doesn't need to be in Mystic Falls for a while, which is awesome because there hasn't been that much in the last few chapters. **

******Hope you enjoyed the update and Chapter 9 will be up soon.**


	9. we're never done with killing time

Chapter 9: We're Never Done With Killing Time

_We're never done with killing time_  
_Can I kill it with you_  
_'Til the veins run red and blue?_  
_We come around here all the time_  
_Got a lot to not do_  
_Let me kill it with you  
- 400 Lux (Lorde)_

* * *

"I'm an Original." Kol said, taking in the boiling water that Davina was demonstrating her practice with. "Which means I'm a lot stronger than the average vampire, even the really old ones. Most of the vampires in this city aren't older than two hundred years - I'm pretty sure that Marcel is the oldest one here apart from me - so if you can get this spell to a point where you're able to stop me, you'll be able to do the same to any of the vampires, witches, werewolves or humans that might come after you." He paused for a second. "But even if you can't stop them, you'd easily be able to weaken them to a point where you can have them at your mercy anyway, and give you time to break their necks with your magic."

"So volatile." Davina said, stopping her spell on the water that was in a bowl between them.

"I'm a vampire." He shrugged. "Plus, I'm pretty sure volatile is a fundamental part of my personality."

"And charming." She shook head, laughing a little at his modesty.

"Hey, darling, I can be very charming when I want to be."

He could actually. He'd been know throughout history as the most unpredictable Original, even up against Nik, simply because he could go from charming to volatile without a change of expression. But what could he say? He liked keeping people unsure of him, and part of him just liked being destructive. He'd accepted a long time ago that the only way to cope with being a vampire would be to stop caring, and in the end, that decision had suited him greatly.

Davina snorted. "I'll believe that when I see it." She stood up, looking down at where Kol was still casually laying on the ground. "So, are we going to try this spell or not?"

"Are you that eager to try and hurt me?" Kol questioned in mock horror, though he stood up as well.

"Who knows?" Davina replied, airily. There was no way she was giving a definite answer to that one, much preferring to try and retain some mask of mystery about her. She had no idea how much of an affect that she'd be able to have on Kol though.

To be honest though, she was eager to see what she could do with her powers and this was something she hadn't even considered until Kol brought the spell back from wherever he'd hurried off to.

They both stood at opposite ends of the attic and Davina raised her hand, ready to harness her magic.

"I won't hurt you of course, but try to stop me before I get to you." Kol told her. There were quite a few feet between the two of them, but she knew how fast he could move, and had doubts that she would actually be able to stop him if he used all of his speed. "And I mean, actually stop me. Break my neck if that's what it takes."

She raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything about his apparent 'death wish'. "I'm ready." She told him.

Kol grinned and stood across from her for a few moments before running forward. He was surprised at how instant her attack was. He hardly got a few steps - about halfway towards her - because he hit a block and his body started to burn from the inside. It was incredibly painful - which was a good thing in the end - but he was still able to keep moving and while she tried to increase the intensity, he was able to quickly stop the spell by pushing her against the wall.

"Did that even work?" She questioned, looking over him for signs of interior blood boiling.

"Trust me." Kol said. "It worked alright, but what you should have done is increased the intensity before I started moving towards you again. If you'd done that, my advance would have been even slower and you could have used your other hand to direct your power to break my neck."

Davina nodded as he released her and took a few deep breaths to focus herself again.

"Did you ever practice offensive magic?" She asked him as he returned to his original starting point.

He shook his head. "No, but I have had plenty of it used on me." It happened when one spent a lot of time with witches. Inevitably, they would feel the need to demonstrate exactly how powerful they were to him, even if he'd never doubted it in the first place. It usually happened when he annoyed someone to a point of extremity. "Come on Davina, let's try it again."

He made towards her like the time before, only this time she managed to block him off earlier, incapacitating him with a higher surge of heat that sent him to his knees.

Everything went black a second later.

* * *

_Their village was small enough that when someone new passed through or there was a event in the square, everyone knew about it. Still, only Kol and Rebekah made their way to the square that night. Their parents weren't interested, Finn and Elijah were doing something for their father - Kol hadn't paid attention - and Mikael deemed Niklaus too pathetic to be seen, and Henrik too young to go._

_Both of them had felt bad for their brother, but there wasn't much they could do, or risk the same treatment themselves. As they made their way to where they were meeting Rebekah's friends, Kol wondered if things would be different if the rest of them stood up for Niklaus more often._

_Perhaps if they were all to show their dislike of Mikael's treatment, things might change, but they were all too scared of their father to really consider it._

_Still, he did wonder._

_"There they are!" Rebekah pointed out the brother and sister that were standing a few feet away from one of the fires burning where everyone was gathering with music and drinks. Hearing her words, they both looked up. Erika, the girl, was quite lovely, with blonde hair a similar length to Rebekah's, but longer and unrestricted, unlike the braid his sister wore._

_"She's lovely." Kol whispered to Rebekah who smiled._

_"What do you think of him?" She nodded towards the brother, her words low as well. Kol glanced at him, not really caring what he was like, his lack of interest obvious._

_"Bron? He's fine."_

_"Bjorn." Rebekah hissed the correction just as they reached the pair, but Kol cared little for his name. He hadn't come to meet with Rebekah's foreign suitor, which was obvious as he directed his smile at Erika._

* * *

Kol's eyes flickered a few times before he finally came to, the pain in his neck persisting for a few seconds after he pulled himself up off the ground. Davina was sitting on the small couch in the corner, watching as he came back to the land of the living. She looked both pleased, but also a little put out by her actions, which resulted in an expression that gave the impression she was trying not to smile or laugh.

He was actually surprised that she managed to take him down on her second go, but he had to remember that he was dealing with someone with the power of four witches, and access to ancestral magic. It didn't have the same give and take aspects of other magic, and she could draw up numerous amounts of power as she gradually was learning how to.

It was almost scary though, the ease in which she managed to take down an Original once she tapped into the idea of the spell.

It made him actually want to make sure he stayed on her good side, but that wasn't new. Collecting powerful witches had always been something that Kol was good at.

"Good job, Darling." Kol told her, trying to retain whatever dignity he had left after that, even though he'd been the one to teach her the spell and even encourage her to break his neck if she could.

"I'm sorry." Davina muttered, giggling a little and covering her mouth in an attempt to mask the sounds, though she wasn't fooling Kol.

"I'm glad you find my... demise so laughable." He said, though he was chuckling a little as well. It wasn't really anything to laugh about, but things had become quite lighthearted between the two of them compared to when he first met her not all that long ago.

"I really am sorry." She added, finally managing to stop laughing.

"Don't be." Kol replied, not that he thought she'd be sorry for doing the same thing to any of her enemies, so there was really no need to say it. Needing a breath of fresh air - having his blood boiled and neck broken was quite the best for even an immortal body - he moved to the window and opened it a tiny crack. He knew that Marcel didn't like her opening it, because the church - while safe for now - was still right in the middle of the French Quarter and a passerby might recognize her. Kol on the other hand, could move out of sight before anyone even glanced at him.

He looked out at the street below through the crack that he'd made, breathing in the air and taking in all of the city and shop lights that were flickering around. After a few seconds, he closed it again and turned back to face Davina, looking at her with a sudden interest.

"What's wrong?" Davina questioned, looking a little incredulous, like she didn't believe that anything could trouble a thousand year old vampire, that perhaps there was a point in life where you really had seen it all and nothing had the power to surprise. She glanced around her, suddenly wondering if there was something behind her or something like that, but that wasn't what was occupying Kol's mind.

Kol glanced away for a moment, looking back at the window before he turned to her, his face void of any expression as he asked, "When was the last time you left this attic?"

* * *

_"The city had walls that ran all around it, protecting it from attacks by the sea in front, and from the land behind." Bjorn said, waving a hand as he spoke about the walls of this fortress city the two of them had visited shortly before coming to the New World. Kol rolled his eyes at the physical demonstration that was obviously for the sake of impressing his sister. It was working though, and her eyes were wide as he continued to talk._

_They were sitting around a smaller fire, drinks in their hands, and Kol deliberately turned away from his love struck sister and her suitor to face Erika._

_"So, this walled city," he began, certain that such a pretty girl would be able to tell him more about the world than the annoyance on his other side, "tell me what it was like."_

_Erika smiled a little, her eyes flickering towards her brother and then back to meet Kol's._

_"I want to hear it from you." He told her._

_She laughed. "My brother can be a little over the top, however I don't think he rivals having five siblings other than yourself." Kol nodded in agreement before she continued. "My brother is right. The walls were majestic and they would protect the city from anything, but I don't much fancy acts of war." Erika made a face. "What he should be telling your sister about is the view from the top of them, looking out over the ocean. The water was like nothing here. It was such a deep blue, but clear enough in spots that you could see fish swimming around if you tried. And the people were lovely, like none that I've ever met before, eager to invite us into their homes and share stories."_

_Erika had a faint accent as she spoke, Kol's language obviously not her first, but she spoke it well, though the pronunciation of her words only helped to make her description better._

_"It sounds wonderful." Kol muttered, forgetting about his other reasons for being there as the image she described formed itself in his mind. Hearing of the world from others did little to quell the desire he had to see it all for himself._

_"Have you been anywhere?" She asked him._

_He shook his head. "But I want too. I want nothing more than to leave all of this behind and start again somewhere new."_

_"Where would you go then?" Despite the fact that he had nothing to offer in the way of stories, she seemed very interested anyway, and he happily told her._

_"Back to the Old World. My father and mother both came from there - they left when the plague killed their first son - but we were born here and haven't seen any of it."_

_"Go." Was all she said before taking another sip of her drink, in a manner that was delicate compared to the crowd drinking around them._

_"One day."_

* * *

It had been surprisingly easy to get Davina out of the attic, even though it was night. The darkness may have been home to hundreds of night walker vampires, but Kol had always had the gift of speed, and was able to move fast enough that none of them even noticed him, and neither did the witches.

Once they were out of the French Quarter, things got a little easier. They didn't have to worry about speed and he was able to let her walk alongside him. He knew that Davina had grown up in the city - so there wasn't anything that she really hadn't seen - but his goal wasn't to take surprise her, just to give her some fresh air.

They made their way across the river, ending up on the other side of the Mississippi, looking out over the French Quarter and the rest of the city, the sky lit up by the lights all around them.

She smiled.

"It's been months." Davina said, looking at the world around her. "It's kind of crazy to think that I haven't stepped foot out of New Orleans since the Harvest, but it feels like I've been away the whole time." She paused for a moment, glancing at Kol. "Though, it does remind me how glad I'll be to be rid of this city when things are over."

The corners of his lips turned up as he recalled her desire to see the world.

"You'll get everywhere that you want to go." He said simply, taking a few steps forward so that he was directly beside her, watching the city as well. They stood like that, in silence, for a few minutes before he caught her frown out of the corner of his eye.

Davina finally turned to him, her expression the most serious that he'd ever seen it.

"Kol," she began, not giving him time to question her sudden change of mood. "I know you looked at my memories, a few nights ago, while I was asleep."

He grimaced.

"I felt it, like it was a dream happening to me. You were digging through my memories of the Harvest." There was no question there, no way that he could explain it away as a coincidence.

"I wanted to know what happened that night." He said simply, trying not to make a big deal about it.

He didn't realize that she'd experience it again through her dreams, otherwise he wouldn't have done it, but Kol wasn't comfortable with apologies and didn't say anything else, his unspoken sorry hanging in the air awkwardly.

Before either of them could say anything else, the telltale sign of another vampire suddenly overtook his senses and he flinched as a mass of brown curls flashed past him, grabbing Davina.

Katerina.

He quickly turned to meet the doppelgangers eyes.

* * *

**(So, I planned to post this on the 9th while I was writing it and then I've been college procrastinating with writing all afternoon and wanted to post it before the 9th. Don't know why it mattered, but I was determined to stick to the date I'd chosen to put it up... so I spent the last house watching the clock and waiting for it to tick over to midnight on the 9th of August just so I could post. I'm messed up lol)**

**Thanks again everyone for the lovely comments! If you're wondering about the apparent random timing of these flashbacks (it's been a few chapters since the last one), it's because Kol goes on memory lane whenever he's being reminded of what it was like to be a human/witch, mostly when he's around Davina, and there is a storyline going on there that I want to line up with a certain chapter when it ends. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and look forward to the next update!**


	10. we are the reckless youth

Chapter 10: We Are the Reckless Youth

_We are the reckless,_  
_We are the wild youth_  
_Chasing visions of our futures_  
_One day we'll reveal the truth_  
_That one will die before he gets there._  
_- Youth (Daughter)_

* * *

_Before either of them could say anything else, the telltale sign of another vampire suddenly overtook his senses and he flinched as a mass of brown curls flashed past him, grabbing Davina._

_Katerina._

_He quickly turned to meet the doppelgangers eyes._

* * *

Katerina had Davina in a headlock and Kol wondered if she actually knew that the girl was a witch. While she hadn't used her powers to free herself - there was always the possibility Katherine might snap her neck before she could - Kol was certain that Davina could overpower her if she really tried. Still, he wouldn't risk leaving it to her to deal with Katerina, considering she seemed to be frozen with sudden fear.

He couldn't blame her. If a member of her coven had showed up in front of her, Davina would kill them without a thought, but a random vampire appearing and grabbing her was something that had taken her off guard.

"Good evening Katerina." Kol greeted, taking in the brunette, who looked like she was on a mission. He had a feeling that he was about to find out exactly why she'd sought out his company, though he could probably guess what it entailed.

"Kol. Haven't seen you since I woke up this morning. You were already gone." She smirked, not doing a very good job at niceties with the look on her face marring her pleasant voice.

"And I daresay you've been following me all day looking for leverage so that you can finally get what you came here for?" Kol questioned, meeting Davina's eyes for a second. She looked a little scared but mostly her face betrayed that she was a little unsure on whether Kol was going to help her or not. "Don't act surprise, Katerina. I know why you're here and you've tried this trick before. You should know by now that you've never been able to get leverage over me."

"So should I just snap her neck and be done with it then? If there's no way that you're going to give in no matter what I do..." Katerina said, adjusting her hold on the little witches' neck. Kol glared at her for a second before fixing his expression.

"Oh come on Katerina, you don't need to be like that." Kol said, taking a step forward, but quickly stopping when Katerina tightened her hold on Davina. "You know, I'm surprised that you feel you have to threaten me to get my help, sweetheart. I've generally been quite forthcoming with the information you need." It was obvious to him by that point that it wasn't just information she wanted to evade Klaus this time. She knew exactly where he was. She wanted Kol's help for her freedom this time.

Katerina shrugged. "Well, considering that fact that you've been in a coffin for a century and you suddenly seem to have taken a liking to a pet that you actually care about," she nodded down at Davina, "I thought that I might take precautions."

"Let her go, Katherine." Kol said, using her English name with contempt. "We all know that I could kill you before you actually act, and so could Davina, so you're really fighting a losing battle here. But I'll help you anyway, because as much as you annoy the hell out of me sometimes, I like annoying Nik more."

She smiled. "And how do you propose to help me?"

"Well, my brother actually has something that would give you quite a lot of leverage, should you have it." He paused, waiting for her to make the connection and only continuing when she didn't. "The indestructible White Oak Stake."

Katerina digested this for a moment before letting go of Davina who shoved away from her, rubbing at her neck. Kol took a few steps forward, making sure that he was between the two of them.

"Should you have the stake, Klaus will not for a second think you'll use it against him - because you _will_ die - but he'll do anything to keep it in his possession. Despite his occasional taste for fratricide, Nik doesn't truly want us dead and I have no doubt that he'd give you your freedom in exchange for getting it back." Kol told her. He could acquire the stake, he had no doubt about that, and he knew that Katerina would see the plan through for her freedom, and then she wouldn't have any reason to run around threatening him.

"And you can get it?" She asked.

Kol nodded. "Easily, but I'd ask that you wait for a few months until the matters I'm seeing through here," He glanced a little at Davina, "are finished and I'd offer you my protection in the meantime, with the possible expectation of you helping me now and again if necessary. None of my siblings know where I am so you wouldn't have to worry about Nik, Elijah or Rebekah deciding to pay me a visit."

Katerina was making a show of thinking about his offer, but Kol wasn't stupid. He wouldn't have made it if he knew that she wouldn't accept it, he would have just killed her in the blink of an eye. "You've thought this out."

He nodded. "Yes." He knew that she'd come calling eventually, because she always did.

"And what's your business here then?" Katerina asked, glancing towards Davina. "Her?"

Kol had to weigh in that moment, but he eventually decided that it wasn't a risk to tell Katherine. She couldn't get her freedom from Klaus by using Davina, and she wouldn't risk what Kol offered her to betray Davina to the witches, because she knew that Kol would either kill her, or she'd be running from two Originals. She may be diabolic, but she wasn't stupid.

"Oh, don't tell me that's the witch-that-got-away I've heard so much about around the Quarter?" Neither Kol, nor Davina, responded and Katerina smiled. "So you're helping her wait out the end of that ritual?"

"That's right."

Katerina gave a quick wave to Davina. "Sorry about the headlock thing, we're good right?" She didn't wait for a reply before turning back to Kol. "Fine, I'll go along with you here in New Orleans if you keep me safe from your siblings, and then hold up your end when it's all done."

Kol nodded curtly. "Come on Davina, I should probably get you back home." He didn't like Katherine being near her and wanted to get them away from each other as soon as possible. Even if he was certain Katherine wouldn't do anything to harm her, he still felt uneasy about a close proximity and wanted to make sure that there was some distance between the two of them.

* * *

Despite the leniency he'd shown to Katerina, Kol really didn't like being part of people's deals and battles. He'd let Katerina go with what she wanted - or the promise of it anyway - because he'd always held a special spot in his heart for the joy that annoying Nik gave him, but the deal with her had brought something else to the front of his mind and he decided that he was going to deal with it then.

Unlike Katerina, he didn't have reasons to owe the witches any such loyalty that preserved their lives when they threatened Davina, and he really didn't care whose niece or daughter stayed dead if this sacrifice didn't happen, if they were even going to come back to life in the first place.

After taking Davina back to the attic and briefly explaining his relationship to Katerina and what they'd been negotiating, he made his way through the night towards the one place he knew he'd find what he was looking for.

It wasn't hard to find some of the witches in New Orleans.

They were always in that blasted cemetery like they owned the place, even though it was technically public property. He made his way in, glad that they'd already extended the invitation and realized that it would probably be promptly revoked after what he was about to do, not that he cared.

They seemed to know as soon as he arrived, because Jane-Anne and Sophie Deveraux both suddenly appeared as he was approaching the crypts where the witches buried their own.

"Kol." Sophie said in way of a greeting, looking him over. "I was wondering when we were going to be seeing you."

"Have you made up your mind?" Jane-Anne asked and he nodded.

"I'd like to speak to your Elder, if you don't mind. Is she here?" He tried to recall the dark skinned woman's name but it failed him. Kol didn't really care though because both sisters nodded.

"This way." Jane-Anne said, taking charge and leading him towards whatever crypt the witches were hanging around in that night. Sophie trailed along, slightly behind the both of them, but Kol didn't spare her a glance. "Agnes is in here." Jane-Anne gestured inside one and Kol made his way inside.

Agnes - that was her name - wasn't alone, standing around a small rustic table with several others that Kol hadn't seen before. She glanced up at him. "Have you finally considered our offer?"

Kol smiled. "Yes, I found your offer to be quite intriguing and I have been giving it quite a lot of thought." He finally looked at Sophie. "I'm sure Sophie Deveraux can attest to that, considering I paid her a visit the other day."

Agnes eyes the young with carefully but didn't pursue whatever questions were flitting around her mind. "And what did you decide?"

Kol grinned and moved towards one of the random witches before they could blink, snapping their neck and ripping out the heart of another. "I decided that you should all go rot in hell."

Jane-Anne made to move forward but was stopped by her sister. "Don't use magic." Sophie hissed.

"Do you really think that Marcel is the worst of your problems?" Kol questioned, the blood coating his hand dripping onto the ground as gestured to himself. "I really don't like people trying to manipulate me. I didn't really believe your generous offer about giving me the city, though I did dare to imagine that you were all telling the truth for a moment, but with the fact that you want to remove vampires once you complete this harvest, you were pretty stupid to believe I wouldn't see through it." He pointed to Agnes. 'I'm guessing you thought whatever power you got from your ritual would be enough to keep me down so that I couldn't come seeking payment."

No one responded.

"Though so." Kol said, overly cheerful. "And now, you will probably have to consider me a problem as well as Marcel. I do have a point to make here," he paused to break the neck of the last witch he didn't know the name of, "but I'll leave you three alive to pass the message onto the rest of your coven."

He leaned down and wiped the last of the blood off on the clothes of one of the dead witches before making his way towards the three living witches.

"Try and manipulate me again, and I'll kill all of you. And trust me, it won't be quick like that." He glanced at the pile of bodies before turning back to Agnes. "I've know to get quite creative when I want to, and I'm sure I'll be able to find a method of killing you that will take _days."_

He left it at that, making his way out of the crypt and heading back towards the from of the cemetery. He as about to step out of the gate when someone attempted to grab him from behind - another witch. Kol hissed and reached around, gripping onto both of the person's arms, detaching them from their body in the next second.

He felt their blood splash all over him but he didn't care. Another witch, a woman, raised her hand and started to mutter in French, setting his head on fire. For a younger vampire, the aneurysm would have rendered them unconscious, but he had better healing as an Original and was able to rush forward and rip into her neck with his fangs, draining her of her blood in a few seconds.

No one else came at him.

"I wouldn't suggest trying that again." He yelled in the general direction of the Elder and the Deveraux sisters, before flashing out of the cemetery.

* * *

He hardly noticed his appearance until Davina's eyes widened in horror when she saw him standing in her doorway.

"Oh my god, Kol!" She hurried forward. "Are you hurt?"

"It's not my blood." He said, waving her concern off as he walked in.

Davina was still checking he wasn't injured as she asked, "Whose is it?"

"A couple of members from your coven, Darling."

Davina came to a complete stop, drawing in a quick breath of surprise before finally paying attention to him. "What happened? Did you go after them?"

"Actually, they came after me - first anyway." He reached forward and touched her temple, worrying little about the blood on his hands, showing her the memories from when Sabine made him the offer of the witches, as well as his conversation with Sophie Devearaux, all up to what had just happened that night. Her eyes were still closed when he pulled away, taking everything in.

"I understand now why you wanted my memories." She muttered, opening her eyes again. "Why did you do it?"

He frowned. "Do what? Kill them?" When she nodded, he continued. "Because I wanted to prove that I meant what I said tonight, that I would stay until this was all over for you. I want to protect you and that I'm not going to let you die for the sake of some stupid ritual and power that these witches truly don't need. And when it's all over, I'll make sure that you get to start living the life that you want, whatever that is."

Her eyes were wide and her expression surprised, but she quickly controlled it, nodding. "I trust you, Kol."

That was a first for him. He wanted her to trust him of course, but it was actually the first time in a thousand years that someone had put their faith in him with such sincerity while not being under the control of his compulsion.

He moved forward so that he was right in front of her and brushed the hair out of her eyes with his hand that wasn't covered in blood, and kissed her forehead before leaving her alone for the night.

* * *

"Were the theatrics really necessary, Katherine?" Kol asked her as soon as he walked in the door of _his _house. She was lounging on the couch with a random human dead on the floor, their throat ripped out.

"I got what I wanted didn't I? And so did you." She said, not even glancing his way when he spoke. "Now we can all hold hands and skip off into the sunset."

A distasteful hiss came from his throat. Everything had gone well with their 'negotiations' but the fact that she'd threatened Davina had pissed him off. He hadn't realized how much until Davina told him that she trusted him to keep her safe, and after he'd slaughtered five of the witches.

He made his way around into her line of sight and than flashed forward, pinning her down on the couch, his whole body over her and their lips less than an inch apart.

"Ready for round two, Kol?" She questioned, a smiling seductive and leaning upwards to kiss him. He shifted just out of his reach.

"We do have a deal, Katherine, don't get me wrong. But, if you ever lay a hand on that girl again, I will rip your heart out on the spot." He whispered before pulling himself on her and shoving her back down onto the couch when she made to get up and follow him. "And get rid of that body. Unless I get to enjoy them too, I don't want your toys all over the place."


End file.
